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?

Email is Serious Business

“Email is for serious business. Texting, Twitter and Facebook are for socializing.”

The common theme among our essay submitters? Email is for businesses and grown-ups. Social networks are fun and cool; email is featureless and for official communication only.

When Generation Y wants to catch up with friends and build relationships, they do it on Facebook. Email is a “necessary evil” (as one candidate worded it) that only grown ups, teachers and businesses use.

Consequently, teens check their email accounts less frequently than their Facebook walls. “I tend to check my phone for text messages or look on Facebook to see if I have any notifications before checking my email,” writes a finalist.

Other students admitted to checking social networks several times a day while neglecting their email accounts for days or weeks unless they were expecting important messages from a teacher, college or employer.

The good news to take away is that even though teens are checking their email accounts less frequently, they expect to hear from your brand through their inbox.

• “I only use email if I have to send my teachers an assignment or check for coupons.”
• “I only receive emails from my school or stores sending me coupons.”
• “I have multiple email accounts for different purposes. These include signing up for cards at stores that send me offers for cheaper products.”

Millennials may reserve email for business, but that means they’re still interested in inviting businesses into their inboxes to take advantage of promotions.

Top 15 Ways to Build Your Subscriber List

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you offer. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and, if done right, helps build loyalty and trust with customers. As a result, you generate more sales and more profits!

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, permission-based email list. Marketers call contact lists their 'goldmine' because it can generate much of their sales revenue. If you've built up a list of opt-in subscribers that are qualified and interested in what you have to offer, then you've completed the first step and are on your way. Now it's time to 'mine' for gold!

Below you'll find several list-building and retention ideas that will help you get the best results from all your email marketing activities:

1. Provide useful, relevant content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be of interest or use to them.
2. Add a subscription form to every page on your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If it doesn't look cluttered, you may want to include more than one on some pages. For instance, if your opt-in form always appears in the top-left corner of your site, you may want to add one at the end of your most popular articles.
3. Add subscription forms to your social media pages. Make sure that you don't waste this valuable source of revenue opportunities. Integrate your sign-up forms with Facebook and more!
4. Make it easy for readers to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it's not necessary, don't include it here. You can always survey them once they're customers! We do recommend that you provide a link to your Privacy Policy however.
5. Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form. (Note: If you don't have one, put the words 'privacy policy generator' into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form to use.)
6. Provide samples of your newsletters and Ezines. This lets potential subscribers review your materials before they sign up to determine if it's something they'd be interested in.
7. Archive past newsletters and articles. An online library of past newsletters and articles is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can increase traffic to your website through enhanced search engine positioning.
8. Give gifts subscribers can actually use. Offer an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list! Write an ebook or provide a PDF business report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don't limit yourself to offering gifts to opt-ins. Give them out when your readers fill out a survey, provide a testimonial, success story, or a great product idea. Let them know when they can expect the next gift offer. Everyone likes to get something for free! And if you pass out 'goodies' throughout the year, your subscribers will feel truly appreciated − and that's good for business!
9. Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find your content interesting, amusing or informative, they'll probably share it with their friends. This can be a great source of new customers, so make sure to remind them to 'pass it on'.
10. Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. If you're happy to share your content with the universe, then why not! Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you'll get new subscribers, and more traffic and links pointing to your site.
11. Include a 'Sign Up' button in your newsletter. If you're using plain text instead of HTML, be sure to provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint them online. Make it easy for them to subscribe!
12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to acquire opt-ins and build your list. Think of it as a mini-sales letter to go along with your subscription or opt-in gift. It should feature a strong headline and a couple of powerful benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up! Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and promote your offer using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now that should make a splash!
13. Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put one or two strong testimonials from satisfied customers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video) is more 'believable' and inspires more people to action. To further enhance believability, get permission to use actual customer names, locations and/or urls (Don't use 'Bob K, FL'). Add a note inviting others to participate. After all, it's free publicity!
14. Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with prospects and potential customers, and creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.
15. Post on other blogs. Post thoughtful comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in pages. Also comment on others' blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers, and get your brand out there!
    
    
    

    Try low cost email marketing!