Benefits of Email Marketing

You want to market your business, but offline advertising can be expensive and time-consuming. Email marketing, however, is exactly the opposite of that.

Whether you’re a local brick-and-mortar business or an online company, you can use email to send subscribers directly to your website or business for a speedy purchase. Emails allow you to reach more people for less, and your return can be exponential. 72% of respondents to an Econsultancy survey in early 2011 described email's return on investment as excellent or good.

Not only is your return on investment higher, AWeber has tools that make it so you don’t have to hire an expensive design firm or copywriter. And many parts of an email campaign are automated; it practically runs itself.

Features

As a customer, you have access to all our features including:

Email Newsletters: You set the date and time you want your newsletter to

send out and we’ll get it delivered.

Autoresponders: Set up a sequence of emails to go out to your subscribers,

and we’ll automatically deliver your emails at the intervals specified.

Email Templates: Choose from over 150 easy to customize templates that

include single and multiple column designs.

Web Forms: Create a beautiful web form in 3 simple steps to start getting

subscribers from your website. Hundreds of web form templates, including

ones to match email templates.

Analytics: Find out who’s opening, who’s clicking, who’s downloading,

who’s buying and who’s viewing...and who’s not. You can use this

information to send broadcast messages to segments, allowing for more

relevant emails. You also have the ability to split test both broadcast

messages and web forms.

Apps: Extend the functionality of your AWeber account by using apps for

Facebook, Wordpress and more. You can also use the AWeber API to

create an app for your own personal use, or make one designed to be used

by thousands of businesses.

3 Steps to More Sales By Split Testing

Take a look at that last promotion you sent. Go ahead, open it up.
How is your subject? Interesting enough to open? How about your call to action? So intriguing that you want to click it?
Good! But opens and clicks only measure interest. They’re not your end goal.
Your goal is to make sales. It’s the revenue from customer purchases that keeps you afloat. So a broadcast’s true worth can be measured in the sales it generates.
The trick is finding out how to put the message together in a way that prompts the most purchases. With a little setup, you can do this right in your AWeber account.

STEP 1:Set Up Sales Tracking

First, you’ll need to make sure you’re tracking the purchases subscribers are making in response to each broadcast.
You can do this with sales tracking. If you’ve already set this up, skip to step 2. If you haven’t yet, head over to our Knowledge Base and follow these steps.
Once you’re ready, it’s time for…

STEP 2:Tweak Your Promotional Broadcast

Start with your original broadcast design. The goal is to see if a different version will sell more, so you’ll need to create that other version.
To get started, take a look at:

• Your call to action.Is your design eye-catching enough? Would different words be more compelling? Should it move above the fold (the point where readers need to scroll to see more)?
• Your text-to-image ratio.Experts recommend a blend of 60% text to 40% images to illustrate your message while avoiding spam traps.
• Your preheaderDo you have a whitelisting request? A link to your newsletter online? An unsubscribe link?
• Your format.Are you using the best layout for your content? Or should you try one of these options instead?
• Your images and copy.Are you presenting your product or service in the best possible light? Or would your readers respond better to something else?

STEP 3:Split Test For the Winning Design

To figure out which design will generate more sales, use the broadcast split testing feature in your account. This sends each version to a randomly selected, equally sized audience so you’ll get the most accurate results.
After the broadcasts go out, follow the QuickStats for each version to keep track of sales. (Just click on the subject on the Broadcast page to see how they’re doing.)

 

Once you have the winning version, you know what design to use for future promotions!

How Likely Are You to Follow These Steps?

Does setting up sales tracking and a split test sound like something you’re likely to do?
If it does, what changes do you think you’ll test? We’d love to hear about your results!
If not, what’s standing in your way?

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.