Do Your Words Scare People Away?

Visits: 1

There’s a saying from Ernest Gaines: “Words mean nothing.  Action is the only thing.  Doing.  That’s the only thing.”  You write words in your marketing emails.  Many or few, you use them to communicate your ideas.  Don’t write words just to communicate.  Write them to request an action.  Sometimes it’s subscribing, responding, purchasing or whatever you want reader to do.

The words that carry most of the weight of the request are the few at the end, where you normally provide a link to proceed which is the call to action.  This is the decision point.  The words you use here could sway your readers either way.  So, how do you know which words to use?  You can guess based on preferences or you can run split tests to be sure.

A case of contextual turn off
The cabot Heritage Corporation which is a stock advisory ran a split test on two opt in buttons.  The buttons were identical in deign and location.  The only difference was in the wording.  One read: “Send My Free Report” and the other read: “Start My Free Subscription.”
Split Testing CTA Opt-in Text

Only two words changed but that change had a powerful effect.  The “subscription” button decreased conversions by 22.9% in the span of just two days.

What happened here?

Different words trigger different associations and those can make or break the response.  In the above case, it looks like readers associated “send my report” with a single contact and “subscription” with regular communication, requiring more commitment.  Your reader’s response will partly depend on your subject line and the relationship you already have.  The phrase that crashed and burned for Cabot Heritage might take your opt in rate soaring.  This is why you need to test.

Think about the long run

In Cabot Heritage’s test, it looks like people preferred the idea of one mailing to regular updates.  Regardless of which button they pushed, they were added to the same mailing list.  It would be interesting to see people who didn’t expect regular mailings would have responded when they started getting them.  Would the unsubscribe and spam rates go up with the opt in rate?  When choosing the words you want, keep in mind that you need to set correct expectations.  A well informed subscriber is a happy subscriber.

How to test your call to action?

Your first step is to write several options that set those expectations and fit the usual “voice” of your brand, how you usually represent your brand in writing.  There are several options you could take:
  • Subscribe here.
  • Sign me up!
  • Sign up for a monthly newsletter and a free t-shirt.

You coud restate the benefits that the subscriber will get.  When you have a few ideas, split test them with one another.  You can do this quite easily with AWeber.

Who answers when you call?

So, are you getting the response you want from your calls to action?  Are the subscribers you’ve collected interested and engaged.  Do they click and purchase?  Have you split tested your calls to action in the past?  How could you test it for an even better response?

AWeber’s QuickStats For Email Newsletters

Visits: 1

If you’re like most people reading this blog post, you love data.  The kind that paints the picture of what is and isn’t working in your email marketing.  The trouble with data is that it’s sometimes hard to know which data is important and worth focusing on.  Not to mention, for the data to be valuable, the data has to be actionable as well.

There’s now a released tool that helps you see how your email marketing campaigns perform but also makes it easy to take action to increase your response rates and conversions.

AWeber’s Broadcast QuickStats

QuickStats makes it easy to understand how your broadcast performed by showing you:

  • Opens
  • Clicks
  • Web Hits/Traffic
  • Unsubscribes

Check out some screenshots of QuickStats:

Mock Opens
Mock Clicks

You cal also use the data to identify responsive and non-responsive group of subscribers, the people who:

  • Opened the email
  • Didn’t open it
  • Clicked a given link
  • Didn’t click that link
  • Made a purchase – You can track email driven sales with AWeber.

QuickStats are actionable

One of the most powerful things you can do when you know who clicked a link, who didn’t open an email is segment out those subscribers and only broadcast to them.  It’s an effective way to talk to people who are interested in a particular product, feature, part of your website or anything else you’re linking to.  When you can identify those who didn’t open an email or click, you can:
  • Make an alternative offer
  • Find out what their objections are
  • Send out targeted and relevant email campaigns to increase your conversions

How will you use this tool?  You will be able to see at a glance how your broadcasts perform, identify potentially subscriber segments and quickly and easily create and deliver targeted campaigns.

How To Track Downloads With Email Analytics In AWeber?

Visits: 5

You may already know about AWeber Analytics features.  These powerful tools allows you to target your list with pinpoint accuracy, sending messages that respond to subscriber activity.  Anywhere you install analytics, you can track which of your subscribers visit that page.  You can send email newsletters to subscribers who visit your order page or who look at a specific product or page on your website.  We’ve recently taken things a step further, allowing you to track subscribers who click download links in your website.

How does it work?

Any download link on your website can be modified to track subscribers that use it.  You could easily follow up with subscribers who download a pdf ebook, ask for feedback on content in the download or even link to related products.  When a subscriber clicks a link, it will be tracked as a page hit to the download.

Who is it for?

Say that you’re tracking which subscribers are downloading a pdf ebook.  You can put that information to work.  We can segment our list and send a message to those people.  You can do this by searching your list for hits to the download’s URL which is in your AWeber account under the subscribers tab.  You would then save this search as a segment so that we can refer to it later.  You can create a broadcast and send it out to that segment directing their attention back to our site with links to similar resources or maybe just asking for input on the content of the PDF.

How To Open The Door To A Second Wave Of Sales?

Visits: 0

Click, creeeaaak!  That’s the sound of a subscribers opening your last marketing email and opening a mental door to more information on that particular subject.  Then there’s the silence from the subscriber who didn’t open their door this time.  In one scenario, you get to share information while in the other you didn’t.  But in both, you’re still standing on the doorstep.  So, what do you do next?

In either case if you just shrug and walk away, you’ve given up.  You need to stick around and follow up.  Sending a second email based on who opened and who didn’t can prompt a second wave of purchases.  This is called behavioural targeting which is responding to subscriber’s behaviour to get more response from the list and promotions you already have in place.  It’s so effective that 71% of AWeber’s customers report that they plan to do more of it in the upcoming months.  It’s as easy as 1-2-3 clicks with AWeber’s new QuickStats.

Your marketing emails probably cover a myriad of topics.  For e.g. if you own a restaurant, you might promote your menu, your wine selection or your catering service.  When you see people consistently opening messages about one of these things, you’ve found your niche for that particular topic.  Then you would follow up with them:

    • If they’ve shown interest in a product you’re advertising, put together a compelling reason to purchase with a call to take the next step.
    • If they usually open the emails you send about a particular topic, go more in-depth by providing helpful details or by telling background stories.

Explain where you hope to take things and ask questions.  These are your interested customers.  These are the people who know most about the topic and will have the most helpful feedback to give.

Sometimes it could be things that aren’t your fault.  Your readers are swamped with work or on vacation or their lives have changed or they may no longer be interested.  Sometimes they get too much in their inbox.

So you can try again.  Let a little time go by and make sure you aren’t sending into the same circumstances.  Then change the way you present the content and resend it to just the people who didn’t open it.

Below are some suggestions for changing the presentation:

  • If your email newsletter covers several topics, the subject line may not have been the most interesting to your readers.  You could choose a different subject as the primary content and change your subject line accordingly.
  • Think about what problem or question someone might have that your email answers and highlight that.

So, do you send messages to subscribers based on whether or not they opened your previous emails?  What are you sending them?

Apply the tips in this blog post and you’ll get a lot higher email opens, click throughs and more sales.

How To Post Your Email Newsletters To Your Facebook Fan Page?

Visits: 4

Like many businesses, you may be exploring integrating social media with your email marketing campaigns.  Doing so can expand the reach of your messages and growth by your fans/followed as well as your email list.

AWeber rolled out their integration with Facebook, it only worked with personal profiles and not fan pages due to the limitations with Facebook’s API.  People wanted to post on their fan pages but it wasn’t technically feasible at the time.  As the saying goes: “The only constant is change”.  Facebook changed their API, AWeber changed their integration and it’s now possible to post your email newsletters to your fan pages.

All you need to do is go to your list settings pages and click the: “Connect To A New Facebook Account” button under the Social Media/Sharing header.

When prompted, allow AWeber Email Marketing to manage your pages.  When you create your broadcast, go to the “Social Media/Sharing” section and choose to share the email on your fan page.