In case you don’t know what Aweber is, it is an email marketing software that enables many entrepreneurs and small business owners to create and send emails that their customers and followers love.

I have spoken extensively about why you need to build an email list and send emails to your followers rather than relying solely on social media platforms.

Well Aweber is the one tool that I use to build my email list and I am going to give you an honest review of my experience using it, so you can decide whether it is for you.

I am going to tell you the good, the bad and the not so good about this marketing tool.

Let’s start.

Aweber In A Nutshell

Aweber has been one of the leading email marketing providers in the marketing industry, having been founded by Tom Kulzer in 1998.

Anyone in the internet marketing arena, is probably familiar with or has used Aweber at some point in their marketing.

So what does this marketing tool do? It helps you to communicate with your subscribers and market to them with automated email campaigns.

They exist for those who struggle with having enough hours in the day to complete the task. The process allows for complete automation of marketing emails with tools that launch, tag, and segment based on subscriber behaviour.

This is what I like about automated marketing tools, because it helps me to free up my time and focus on the more important things in my business, which is networking and making sales.

So if you find that you’re networking or following up with your leads manually, consider using an automated email marketing tool like Aweber.

I remember in my network marketing days, I would follow up with my leads by reaching out to them in a Facebook or Instagram message or via SMS message. Aweber would have definitely come in handy back in those days.

Email List Segmenting

Segmenting is a vital part of the key features offered by Aweber. Segmentation is the process of sorting your subscriber list based on specific actions taken by your subscribers.

The division creates subgroups, and the subgroups vary based on behaviour, interest, and characteristics.

Segments work well with keeping track and reaching out to groups of subscribers within a list who have similarities.

For example if you want to segment your email list by those who have opened your emails within the last month, then you can do that.

You will be able to tag these subscribers as active and send them more important or frequent emails since they continue to engage with your content.

If you want to segment your email list by those who have clicked on a particular link, showing that they are interested, you can do that and only send an email to that segment.

This is useful, for example, if you want to retarget persons who may be interested in a product you have on sale. If they clicked on the link to visit the product, you can segment the link clickers and send them a more targeted message where you offer an incentive to continue with their purchase. 

The segmentation process helps to streamline emails that are more result-focused instead of task-focused. It makes it easier to send the right emails to the right people. Personalising your list, based on segmentation, is a great way to increase click-through rates and reduce the unsubscribed rate.

Setting up the segmenting process is quick and easy with only a few clicks. Simply go to the email list you want to segment, select from the list of segment options, then click search.

Once you save a particular segment, you will not have to create that segment again, unless you choose to make changes to it.

I use segmentation all the time to help increase my open and clickthrough rates and to send special offers to those who I know are interested in my content.

Email Campaign Automation

The driving force behind an automated email campaign is to organise your subscribers into particular email lists so they get the most appropriate emails that matter to them.

There is a misconception that the email marketing automation process is challenging to set up, but, it’s pretty easy to get started, or so Aweber says.

Ok! Full transparency here…

I have never used the automation campaign before.

When I tried to set up my own campaigns in the first few months of starting Aweber (circa August 2016), I had no clue about what the campaign process was and why it was necessary.

At the time, it was a bit overwhelming, having just started internet marketing and learning everything I could about it. I completely gave up the first time and never made it a priority.

But studying the automated campaigns now, I have to say that it really is only useful if you want to free up more of your time and want a way to segment your list automatically.

For example, you can segment your list based on the country your subscribers are from and send them specific emails.

Other ways to auto-segment the list is by the source of the email and ad tracking. You can also apply tags to your subscribers and segment them that way.

If you have no issue applying tags and segmenting your list manually, then the automated campaigns offers nothing elaborate to boast about. 

Sign Up Forms

Aweber also comes with sign-up forms but truthfully, I rarely use them, instead opting to create my sign up forms, or lead capture pages with a designated lead capture page builder like LeadPages. You can read my review of LeadPages here.

In my opinion, Aweber sign up forms appear outdated and just do not have the design factor that I am looking for.

Here’s what they look like on my website

If you do decide to use Aweber’s sign up forms on your website, they allow your customers to subscribe to your email list effortlessly.

So if you want a simple sign up box where people can sign up for content to your blog, then opt to use Aweber’s sign up form as an in-content lead box or as a side column lead box.

To design your sign up form use Aweber’s form generator. It customizes the forms according to your specific needs. You have the choice to change the buttons, purpose, appearance, and entry fields on the form.

Once you have decided on the look and style of your form, you will have to add it to your website. You can add the form to any or all pages of your site with javascript code that Aweber gives to you.

Simply copy and paste the code where you want the form to appear.

Another feature is the split test option. The split-test is a great tool to use to see which form is most attractive to your subscribers. Finding out which sign-up form works best can be useful in subscriber growth.

In order to use the split test tool however you must create two sign up forms under the same email list. The split test option will only be accessible this way.

Email Templates and Content Editor

The content editor is nothing spectacular in my opinion.

Aweber recently upgraded their content editor to a drag and drop interface so it is easy to organise your content into beautiful emails by dragging the elements from the left into the center to create the email.

They also offer pre-made and tailor-made templates that meet your branding and style needs. This is a time-saver for the busy entrepreneur.

You have the choice to change a pre-existing template. You can modify the colour, background and font, as well as include video or images in your content.

I never really used any of the templates that are available but they do help your emails stand out if you are the creative type.

Email Types

The type of emails you can create include legacy series, broadcast emails or blog broadcasts. 

Legacy series is a single series of emails that is set up so a subscriber can receive your emails in a particular order.

For example, once a person subscribes, you can set up the series so that they receive your first email immediately, then your second email, a day later, your third email on the third day, etc.

The single series process is straightforward in its approach to send emails in a sequence pattern.

If you forego the single series, broadcast messages are available.

A broadcast message is simply sending everyone on your list the same email, whether your broadcast is an announcement that you are launching a product or have a sale.

Broadcast messages are quick and easy to create. Simply select the broadcast message item, create  your email and then send.

If you have an RSS feed on your blog you can connect your blog to the Aweber platform to send blog posts as emails. Another easy way to do this and to help generate traffic back to your blog is to compose a broadcast email with a link to your blog. 

Integrations

There are many online applications and services that integrate with Aweber making your entire marketing arsenal seamless.

Currently, there are over 150 listed applications.

Integration allows for a smooth merge of your marketing campaign with the rest of the online business strategies you may use often.

Some of the most popular integrations include:

• Facebook
• WordPress
• PayPal
• Clickfunnels
• OptimizePress

If you don’t see a particular service on the list, Aweber is set up to assist in new integration opportunities.

Email Tracking and Reporting – Open Rates and Clickthroughs

I don’t often pay attention to this, but email tracking and analytics are available to view at any time and can help with the growth of your business.

With the available reports, you will have the chance to see click through rates, open rates, purchases and more. It’s handled all in just a few simple clicks.

So let’s say you want to see what percentage of your list opened a particular email and how many people clicked on a link within the email, you can view the email report showing you the performance of that email.

Open and click through rates help to provide valuable information about the activity of the subscribers on your list.

Tracking this report can help you determine the success level of your email campaign and assist you in understanding whether your subject lines need rewriting or your content is engaging.

You can then use this information to split test different subject lines and email content. 

If you’d like to know whether email drives purchases on your website you can also set up tracking to track this important metric.

With the help of these analytics, you will have the ability to adjust your current campaign based on the numbers, and track emails aimed at increasing website traffic.

Keeping track of the analytical knowledge is important in learning what works best for your subscribers.

Support

One thing I must say about Aweber support is that it is phenomenal.

They do offer live support 24/7 via email and chat. They are also available by phone from 8am-8pm Monday – Friday. There is a ticket support system via email to work on technical issues promptly and in a timely order.

Usually when I report an issue with my email marketing I get a response within an hour. I don’t have any qualms at all about their support.

Besides technical support they also implemented a knowledge base that is an extensive list of frequently asked questions. The knowledge base contains answers ranging from questions about your account to how to use the service. It’s easily accessible because it’s divided into different categories.

There is also a blog on the website. There are many how-to articles and articles with advice on what works well and new options to try. If you happen to be looking for marketing tips, make sure to check out their blog.

Deliverability

Having the ability to deliver emails is crucial to any marketer.

Who wants to compose an email, click send and then that email lands in your subscriber’s junk mail?

The goal is always to get your emails in the inboxes of your subscribers. Once your emails are seen, you open availability to increase the opportunity for future opens and more clicks and engagement.

Aweber knows that deliverability is a key point for marketing emails which is why their focus is on securing a high performance score as determined my Sender Score.

Sender Score is an email deliverability firm that measures the performance of email servers, rating them on the quality and reputation of the emails they send.

According to Sender Score, Aweber has a high score of 97-98.

Tom Kulzer developed one of the first email autoresponders in 1998. His experience over the course of two decades allows him to provide insight into the best ways to get an email delivered to an inbox.

The in-house monitoring team also monitors reports of undeliverable emails 24/7. The data found in the reports help to identify and remove suspicious or low-quality emails from the list.

Is the Aweber Marketing Software For You?

With the information available for Aweber and based on your own trials of other autoresponders, it is up to you to determine if this is the best fit.

Aweber provides several benefits that help to lessen the load of an already overwhelmed small business owner or entrepreneur.

Many of their products have an initial free period that may be worth trying to see if the experience works well for you.

Click here to get Aweber’s free 30 day trial.

The post Aweber Review – Email Marketing Automation For Marketers & Bloggers appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

When we grow our email list and see the numbers increasing day by day, it’s easy to get excited at the possibility of every one of those leads converting into a paying client.

But unless your follow up email strategy is on point, your email list can be as useless as a dead horse with very little chance of generating sales from your subscribers.

When writing your follow up email sequence, place yourself in your prospect’s position. As a cold lead, they are already sceptical as they have only seen you once and don’t know exactly what to expect.

Their guards are up because they’ve probably already deciphered that you only wish to use them as a pawn in your marketing. They’re definitely waiting for you to mess up, so your emails need to show that you’re different from other marketers.

To do this, you have to use nurturing strategies that help to break the ice and get them to know you before you even ask for the sale.

In this post I will show you exactly how to strategise for best results with a cold email list, and how to warm them up for sales.

Here’s What You Will Learn:

• How to make a first impression with your welcome email
• How many emails to include in your sales email strategy
• What content to include in your sales emails    
• How to write the perfect sales pitch
• What to do when leads don’t convert  

How To Make A First Impression With Your Welcome Email

Even if you know that your end goal is to convert your lead into a paying customer or client, you do not want to start your email series with a sales pitch.

It is the biggest turn off for a lead who just came through your lead capture opt-in page and barely has had any time to get to know you. Except maybe for a few videos they saw of you on your website or a few articles you wrote here and there.

Your first welcome email is to do just that. Welcome the lead.

Acknowledge that they have made it on to your email list and thank them for doing so. Too many times we take this step for granted, but many of my leads respond to my welcome email by thanking me for my content or explaining why they decided to join my email list.

The fact that you can get a lead to respond, means that you have already started building the relationship and gives you an opportunity to demonstrate that you’re in fact a real person on the other end of the email.

So many leads who come onto an email list, know that your emails are automated. By adding a personal touch and some human-ness to the email, gives you points and helps you stand out from other marketers.

Another element of the welcome email is setting out the objective of the email campaign. You may wish to inform your leads why you created the email list, for example, to provide helpful insights into how to do affiliate marketing or to give tips on how to use Facebook ads for a business.

Whatever the purpose, set it out clearly so that the lead knows what to expect from you so they may decide whether they wish to stick around or leave.

It is also wise at this point to pre-frame your lead by mentioning your product or service.

Whilst the first email is not meant to be a sales pitch, briefly referring to your product or service invites the lead to become acquainted with it so they know that you do have an additional resource (albeit paid) that they can use to help them solve their problems.

Mentioning it here gives you enough time to prepare the lead for the sale down the line.    

How Many Emails To Include In Your Sales Email Strategy

They say that the fortune is in the follow up and it is true.

Every lead that comes through your funnel, is likely to contemplate making a purchase from you after seeing an offer seven or more times. Some even say that it takes 12 hits before a purchase is made.

Therefore when creating your email strategy and wondering how many emails you should include in your sales email series, I would recommend seven.

Of course you can have more or less, but the reason why I suggest seven is because it gives you enough time to provide a lot of value to the lead whilst warming them up for your offer.

You will see later on in this post how I structure my emails.

It will also make sense why seven is such a significant number. If you were to make your email series shorter, then there is the risk that you will have to include so much information in your emails that it can lead to overwhelm.

When you lengthen the email cycle as well as space them out, for example including two-day intervals you have a higher chance of the lead taking in your information, learning from it, then seeing the benefit of your offer and how it can help them.

What Content To Include In Your Sales Emails   

When writing a targeted email series dedicated to selling a product or offering a service I always have a beginning, middle and end.

The Beginning

At the beginning, which is the first email they receive, I like to welcome the lead so that they know who I am. Introduce myself and help them understand why they have joined the email list and what they can look forward to.

I also do some general housekeeping my asking them to whitelist my email so that it keeps me out of the spam box.

I do this in a way that allows the reader to see the benefit of doing so, such as they will keep updated with all material sent their way or they will never miss any important news that matter to them.

In the beginning I do not want to pursue the sale just yet as I am still in the nurturing phase. My aim therefore is to only break the ice, say hello and keep it moving.

The Middle

The middle is where I demonstrate to the lead my expertise in the niche. It usually spans emails two to four.

For example, if the service that is being offered is rental space, I want to provide some type of value within two or three emails that help to educate the lead.

Even if you are writing emails for an eCommerce product, don’t be afraid to spend some time providing education to the lead about your product.

For example, you can write content about how a particular product can be used, how it can benefit their day to day life or what alternative products would be useful to them.

Sometimes people may not know that they need a product or service and this is where you need to literally spell it out to them so they can see why it makes sense to invest in the purchase.  

The End 

This is where I get serious. I kick it up a notch and go for the punch line in emails five, six and seven.

The end is where I am telling the lead that I want their money.

After all the value that you have previously provided, don’t forget to use this time to ask for the sale.

Many email writers are afraid of asking their subscribers to make purchases because they do not want to drive them away or turn them off. But that is the main reason why you asked them to join your email list in the first place anyway.

You are running a business. It is a reasonable expectation that you want to be profitable and you can only do that by offering an exchange to your subscribers.

When asking for the sale I always pre-frame my subscribers by preluding to it in the beginning and middle emails.

So it makes it a natural flow that the next thing to do is get the sale.

When asking for the sale I do so over three emails:

1. The first one is a soft pitch directing the lead where they can purchase the product or service.

2. The second email is a hard pitch paying attention to getting the sale today. I offer incentives such as a time-sensitive discount, gift or free downloadable knowledge product to encourage the subscriber to make a purchase today. 

3. The third email I remind the subscriber about the offer and give a final warning of the time-sensitive bonuses.

I have observed that by adding time-sensitive bonuses can really get your subscribers to take action and increase your conversion rates.

Related Article: 

How To Build A Profitable Email List Step by Step

How To Write The Perfect Sales Pitch

So let’s put everything together with some examples of how you can ask your subscriber for the sale.

Often times marketers don’t know how to convince their subscribers to take out their credit cards and buy, so I have scrutinised sales emails of other marketers and broken it down for you.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Here is one of Michelle’s sales emails, where she is promoting the sale of her course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

Michelle appears to have only one email in her sales email series. She goes for the sale in the first email which for me is a big no!

Where’s the relationship building? Where’s the wooing?!

It would appear that she incorporates all the points of my email series in this one email.

She starts by delivering the lead magnet in her first paragraph.

In her second to sixth paragraph she shares a bit of knowledge about her niche – affiliate marketing – by demonstrating her expertise and authority on the subject.

This kind of value then leads into her pitching her course about affiliate marketing.

Although she mentions that the readers can check out her bonuses, I’m not keen on the fact that she has not broken down the bonuses within this email, which makes it easier for the reader.  

Frankly I don’t like the structure of this email as everything’s all meshed together in one. I do think a longer series could allow her to connect more with her readers.   

Create And Go   

Pay attention to this next sales email by Create and Go, which I think is the ideal way that an email should be structured.

This email is actually the seventh email in a sales email series where they delivered an email course over five days then sold their Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course in the sixth and seventh emails.

Notice how in the first few paragraphs they provide a bit of proof about their success with Pinterest and how it helped one of their clients.

This is very influential to subscribers to encourage them to make a purchase.

I really like how straightforward they were about describing their course so the reader knows what they’re going to get.

Also notice how they include incentives and bonuses to get the reader to buy today.

In their sales email they employ several urgency tactics, such as highlighting that the bonuses will be theirs if the subscribers purchased today.

They also stress that the discount is for a “limited time” and “will be taken down very soon”.

All in all this email scored well in my eyes and is one that I would recommend you follow.   

Dan Henry

The final sales pitch email is by a guy named Dan Henry.

His email followed a series of 9 emails altogether and this one is eight out of nine.

By the time the email came around I knew exactly what he was selling as most of the emails concentrated on the product.

He “sold” the product mainly through testimonials and social proof so it’s a great way to create credibility by showing that other people are getting results.

In this sales email, Dan uses emotions to empathise with his readers. By touching on the feelings of your subscribers you can almost always get them to relate to you or a particular person that you are describing.

In this case he focuses on Corey’s near-broke position and how he resurrected himself by taking Dan’s course.

This is a great strategy as when people see how it was has worked for other people who are “just like them”, they tend to take action quicker.

Another thing that exudes from Dan’s email is his confidence.

Notice how he keeps it real by telling his readers what his objective is. That is, to get results.

I must say he sounds convincing and it’s different because so many marketers disguise their sales pitches by sugar coating and making it look fancy. 

Even though Dan does not offer incentives for you to buy, I think he did a pretty good job in his tone and the use of social proof.

I like how he keeps it real and I would actually buy his course after reading this email.

From these three sales emails you should now have some inspiration for how to write your own sales email.

Take some elements from each email and go right ahead and create your own.  

What To Do When Leads Don’t Convert  

Not all your leads are going to convert.

That is the reality of email marketing. When you look at industry standards for activity within email marketing in eCommerce, you will find that sales conversions account for 1-5%.

I have not been able to find any statistics that show the sales conversion rates for service-based or product-based businesses.

So what happens when you do not convert leads? Well either those leads will drop off, this is where list cleaning comes in, or your leads may remain engaged with you and make a purchase months or years down the line.

Even though it takes at least 7-10 reminders for a subscriber to purchase your product, some people may only ever buy your product after months of following you.

So the lesson from this is to remain consistent in your email marketing efforts and continue to provide value and build the relationship.

Wrapping Up

As a marketer, always have an end goal for your email marketing, which ultimately should be converting your subscribers into sales.

There are good and bad ways of building a relationship for sales through email marketing and I have outlined the better steps to take when you generate your first subscribers.

Let’s summarise those steps:

1. Don’t start selling from your first email. Learn to get acquainted with your subscribers with a welcome email that supports relationship building.

2. An email series of 7-10 emails is ideal for converting subscribers into paying customers.

3. Include as much value as you can within those emails by pre-framing the subscriber for your product or service.    

4. One to three of those emails has to be a hard sell. Learn how to master the sale by studying other marketer’s emails and taking a few key points and implementing them in your own.

Email marketing is a skill that you have to learn and it is the easiest to learn by doing and seeing what works for you.

Not all email lists are made equal so study your own efforts and work on improving it every day.   

Cheers,

The post 6 Ways to Warm Up A Cold Email Lead For Sales appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Absolutely pathetic.

I started with a small email list size of 500 but only about 1.5% of my emails were being opened. At the time I knew very little about the science of email marketing.

I was also too lazy to even bother researching why I was getting low email open rates when someone mentioned that my email list is my biggest business asset and I should learn to nurture it and treat it with care.

From that day onwards I started testing every strategy that I learnt to improve my email open rates and deliverability so I could get the best out of my email marketing.

I want to share these strategies with you because if email marketing does not work for you, then you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Related Articles: 

• How To Build A Profitable Email List 
• How To Get Email Subscribers As A Newbie 
• The Ultimate Email Strategy For Marketers And Bloggers
• How To Start An Email List From Scratch 

Here’s What You Will Learn

• Why open rates and deliverability matters
• What can affect your email deliverability
• What can affect your email open rates
• 5 things you can do right now to improve your deliverability
• 4 things you can do to improve open rates
• Other metrics you should be testing to improve your email marketing

Why Email Open Rates And Deliverability Matters

If you have started email marketing, then open rates and deliverability matters because that’s how people see your content.

If no one is opening your emails or if your emails are not being delivered, then your marketing message is going unheard and you are wasting your time.

If you have taken care of your email list by giving them content that helps and adds value to their lives or businesses then chances are they are more likely to listen to product recommendations and this is how you can make money from your email list.

But first you have to overcome the challenge of having your emails delivered to your subscriber’s inbox.

Once it gets to their inbox it would be even better if the email gets opened so that the subscriber knows about your product or what you have to offer.

But I don’t want you to be so consumed by trying to increase your email open rates. It’s not all that matters. The objective of this post is to help you improve your email open rates and deliverability but if you stay to the end I will share with you why this should not always be your core focus.

What Can Affect Your Email Deliverability

There are many things that can affect open rates and deliverability. If someone subscribes to your email list for the first time and your welcome email lands in their junk mail then there are a few things you can look for to see why that happened.

Blocked Domain

Everyone starts with a clean slate but if you started off on the wrong foot by making email marketing blunders, then you may find that your domain has been blocked thereby registering any email you send to be listed as spam.

If you think that you might be a victim of those spam filters then a great way to see if your domain has been blacklisted is to run an MX ToolBox blacklist check.

This tool checks whether your domain has been blacklisted and is a good indication as to why your emails to your subscribers are performing poorly.

Here is my result after checking my email domain.

You can also check your sender reputation and see what your score is. If you have a low sender score then this explains the possible reason for your emails not performing well.

Free Email Addresses

If you are sending bulk marketing emails but do not yet have a private email address and you’re still relying on a free email address by Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail or the like, then you run the risk of your emails being delivered to the spam box. This is because free email address hosts recognise any bulk emails using their domains and being sent from outside their servers as spam.

For example, if you are using Aweber as your email autoresponder but your From email address is @gmail.com, then any subscriber who also uses an @gmail.com address more than likely will not receive your email.

This is because Google will establish that your email is spam as it did not come from their server but from Aweber’s server.

Lack of Content Customisation

Another thing that affects deliverability rates is when your email content is not customised but similar to other marketing messages. If you have copied your email content from someone else who already has problems with email deliverability, it is likely that you will encounter the same problem.

The reason for this is that email service providers have already marked the content as spam. Therefore any words that you use that is similar to emails that have already been marked as spam, will trigger the spam filters.

Banned URLs

As an affiliate marketer you may be using URLs that trigger spam filters.

Think about this. If many people are including the same URL in their emails, email service providers see this as spam and therefore will mark your email as spam landing it in the junk folder.

What Can Affect Your Email Open Rates

Relationship Lost

Some bloggers and marketers are guilty of collecting email addresses but do nothing with them. When you collect an email address you need to start building a relationship with your subscribers immediately.

When you build a relationship they look forward to your emails and therefore are more likely to open your emails.

When they hardly hear from you, they’re like that one long lost friend you have that turns up at the most opportune time to sell something to you. Guess what?! They don’t want to hear from you.

So treat your subscribers like your best friend.

Opting for Single Opt In

You may also have opted for single opt in instead of double opt in. When you are using single opt in for your marketing, you may be at risk of getting lower quality subscribers.

People opt in for many reasons. Some are curious and not really interested in what’s on the other side of the page so whilst they provide an email address, they may not be bothered with what comes next which are your emails.

Others do not even provide their real email address. So if a fake or unused email gets through to your email list then even though your email may land in their inbox, it is unlikely to get opened.

Unappealing Subject Lines

Do your subject lines evoke excitement or curiosity? If they are boring and uninteresting then that’s an obvious reason why people are not opening your emails.

Take a look at Digital Marketer’s best email subject lines for ideas on how you can improve.

Unengaged Subscribers

There are many marketers with thousands of email subscribers but when you ask them what type of engagement they get, it is probably a small fraction.

If your subscribers have lost interest in reading your content then they are not going to open your emails.

If you purchased an email list and you are trying to engage those subscribers then it is likely that you will have difficulty in doing so.

When you purchase an email list you have not been given permission by those subscribers to email them. Therefore they will not open your emails unless they have to unsubscribe.

Time of Delivery

Sometimes the timeliness of an email can affect open rates.

They say that there is a good time and bad time to send an email. The best thing you can do is to check your email reports to see if there is any pattern to your subscribers opening their emails. If you see a pattern over a period of time then it’s a good idea to stick to that schedule.   

5 Things You Can Do Right Now For Improved Email Deliverability

Get Off of Blacklists

When checking the MX Toolbox and if you find that your IP or domain has been blacklisted, then be proactive and work on getting yourself removed from the list.

MX Toolbox explains how to do that here.

Use a Private Domain

If you are using a free email address then it’s time to use a paid one. You can actually set up private email addresses using domain providers like Namecheap, Bluehost or Godaddy.

Many email autoresponders do warn you against using free email addresses in any event and some may not even let you use a free email address as a sender’s email address.

Customise and Personalise Your Content

This particularly applies to affiliate marketers.

If you are an affiliate marketer, then avoid copying email scripts that affiliate managers provide to you when you are promoting their product.

Instead be unique and creative in your content. This will not only make you stand out from the rest but will help you bypass spam filters as your email content does not resemble thousands of others.

Also pay attention to your subject lines and be sensible. Some things that affect delieverability include subject lines and content that have all capitalisations (FREE), symbols (R@t3 Th1s N0w), repeated punctuation marks (!!! Or ???).

Check out this huge list of email spam words from Automational to avoid.

Pro Tip: It’s also a good idea to make your content appear genuine and relatable so that you can make that connection with your subscribers.

Use Cloaked URLs

As an affiliate marketer you will be given URLs that look long and ugly. Most of the time, email service providers can recognise these URLs within your emails and will block them.

Using a custom domain to wrap around your affiliate link will help you avoid this problem.

Whilst there are link shorteners that help you to make your affiliate links look pretty, be careful of using them in your emails as they are notorious for being used by spammers and will only help your email land in the spam folder.

Clickmagick is a handy tool that allows you to create a custom domain for every and any affiliate link you may be promoting.

Install An SPF Record

This is a crucial part of having successful email deliverability and not many people know how to do it. An SPF record is a sender’s policy framework which verifies with email service providers that you are who you say you are.

In the video below I show you how to set up your SPF record.

4 Things You Can Do To Improve Open Rates    

Keep In Touch

There are many times I will receive an email from someone that I subscribed to a long time ago, but because their emails were infrequent, I forgot I subscribed to their email list and have lost interest in knowing what they have to deliver.

Don’t be like that.

If have built an email list be sure to keep in touch with them regularly. Sending an email once a week is sufficient.

Pro Tip: Try to avoid sending emails everyday as some subscribers may find it annoying causing them to unsubscribe from your email list. According to Get Data Research, 46.4% of email unsubscribes were due to receiving too many emails.

Use Double Opt In

There is a great debate about whether double opt in is better than single opt in. Marketers use single opt ins to get as many email addresses as possible but what this does is lower the quality of the list.

In some cases people may not use their everyday email addresses causing your open rates to be lower.

In other cases they may not even use a real email address which may lead to high bounce rates.

Therefore when marketing I would recommend double opt ins as by asking your subscriber to take the further step of confirming that they want to receive your emails confirms that they are genuinely interested in your content and their email address is real.

Split Test Subject Lines

If you find that open rates are low it may be because of unappealing subject lines. Which is why it is necessary to split test your subject lines to see which ones get higher open rates.

To split test an email subject line start by sending an email to your list with your first subject line.

If you find that your open rate was low then consider segmenting your list for those people who did not open your email and send the same email but a different subject line.

This was how I was able to increase my email open rate by over 50% from 34.4% and my click through rate by over 8% from 3%.

Clean Your Email List

Some people say that you should not clean your email list as inactive email subscribers can become active again over a period of time.

But realistically how long should you wait for them to become active again?

As a rule, I generally clean my email list every three months. This helps to ensure that only people who want to read my content remain on my email list.

It makes no sense to have over a thousand email subscribers when only a tenth of them are opening your emails.

When you clean your email list you will generally improve your open email rates and your senders reputation. This tells your email service provider that you are responsible and people love engaging with your content which helps to increase deliverability in the future.

You are also likely to reduce the cost of your email subscription by paying only for worthy email subscribers who want to open your emails.

Here is an example of a recent email that I sent to a segment of my email list that had not opened my emails for three months.

When I did not receive any feedback from them, I simply removed them from my email list.

Other Metrics You Should Be Testing To Improve Your Email Marketing  

Whilst email open and deliverability rates do matter, they are not indicators of a successful email marketing campaign.

It is also important to measure click through rates, sales derived from emails, whether subscribers reply to your emails, how many website pages were visited as a result of your emails.

These are all part of determining whether you have a successful email marketing campaign and can be measured by using various tools like Clickmagick which tracks the traffic through any links that are placed in your email to see if those links generated sales.

You can also use Google Analytics to track your email marketing campaigns.

Wrapping Up

If your email deliverability and open rates are poor like mine was, I hope you will find this list of tips useful to help you improve your email marketing campaigns.

Certainly if you want to make a good return on your investment then email deliverability and open rates are key and you should be focusing on these two things when you start.

What other things do you do to improve email open rates and deliverability? Tell me in the comments.     

Related Articles: 

• How To Build A Profitable Email List 
• How To Get Email Subscribers As A Newbie 
• The Ultimate Email Strategy For Marketers And Bloggers
• How To Start An Email List From Scratch 

Cheers

The post How To Improve Broadcast Email Open Rates and Deliverability appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

If your open rates for your welcome emails are not higher than 50% then you’re doing something wrong and I will share with you, one key thing that I always do to increase my open rates.

The thing is, if your open rates for your first email is low, it dictates what your open rates are likely to be for the rest of your email series.

What you want to do the first time, is leave a lasting impression on your visitors so they will feel like they just have to read your second, third or fourth email.

Doing so can lead to high click through rates, more people seeing your content and potentially sales.

What You Will Learn:

This is going to be a comprehensive guide on what to say in the very first email you write to your visitors and what to say before you even get visitors to your list so you can maximise every chance you get for them to open that email.

You will learn:

• Why your first email is the most important email
• One insanely easy thing you can do to increase open rates of your first email
• Exactly what you should be writing in your first email
• Other example templates of welcome emails than you can take inspiration from

Why Your First Email Is The Most Important Email   

Building Relationships

Like they say, the first impression lasts and is always the one that counts.

When you are meeting someone for the first time, or if they are just coming to your business through a sales funnel channel, it’s always best to greet them with an email that says “this is me but I’m not ready to marry you yet”.

The reason why we build email lists is that we are hoping that by adding a subscriber to a follow up process, they become profitable one day.

Essentially what this means is that you want to be able to turn your subscriber into a paid customer one day however whilst that is the outcome you’re seeking to achieve, on the first day you meet them, you don’t want it to be the obvious scenario.

This is why you need to work towards building a relationship with your subscribers and the first thing you do not want to give to them when you first meet them, is a sales pitch.

Selling to your subscribers the first time you meet them is like shooting yourself in the foot.

You have worked so hard to acquire that subscriber. You don’t want to end up with a lot of unsubscribes or even worse a dead, non-responsive list.

That is how important your first email is because it sets the taste in the subscribers’ mouth as to how valuable they perceive you.

If you can in fact help them solve a problem as opposed to getting money out of them they will decide whether they want to remain on your list or not.

So how exactly do you create a great first impression? By remembering that no one likes to be sold to. Therefore when writing your welcome email do not focus on the sale.

It’s Simply Expected

Another reason why welcome emails are so important is simply for the fact that it is expected.

When persons opt into a lead capture page to receive a lead magnet, they automatically assume that they are going to receive that lead magnet to their email address.

So what do they do?

They check their inbox or junk mail and if it’s not in there, they may opt in again to make sure that they did not enter an incorrect email address.

The number of times I have seen in my email list, similar names but different spelling email addresses. So it would be apparent that the lead made an error when typing in their email address.

That points out to me that the lead does expect some delivery to their email address.

If you do not have a welcome email set up, it tells the lead that you are not prepared, you’re not bothered about greeting them and disappointingly you have failed to deliver on your promise of the lead magnet.

If this happens don’t be surprised if your email list forgets about you when you do finally send your first email and a lot of unsubscribes occur.

Even if it is automated, remember that when you create that funnel and before you send traffic to that funnel, prepare an email list and at least a welcome email to introduce yourself to the subscriber.

One Insanely Easy Thing You Can Do To Increase Open Rates Of Your First Email

Industry standards say that the average open rate is anywhere between 50% to 86%.

Here’s my welcome email on two email lists:

So if your welcome emails are currently getting below these figures then you can optimise your opt in page sequence or sales funnel for better results.

Most of the times the reason why list owners get low open rates, is because the subscriber was not fully engaged, they did not receive the email in the first place or the email ended up in their junk mail.

This is why it is important that the message you send to the subscriber is clear, precise and gives them instructions to take action.

Basically your call to actions must be effective.

What is a call to action?

A call to action is a statement that you make to get an immediate response from the person reading the statement to do something.

Types of call to actions

For this particular section I am going to focus on the type of call to actions you can include in your opt in sequence and sales funnels.

When the subscriber opts into a content upgrade on the blog or a lead capture page on the sales funnel, you want to ensure that there is a thank you page at the end of each sequence speaking to the subscriber and telling them what to do next.

On the thank you page you can include text call to actions or video call to actions.

Text call to actions

If you are using text call to actions some examples of instructions that you can give to the subscriber to follow so that they head to their email is as follows:

Check your inbox for my email

An email has been sent to your inbox. Make sure and go there and look for it

Your gift/promised offer has been sent to your email. Be sure to check it out

Check your junk mail too just in case my email was delivered there.

If you are using the double opt in feature where your subscriber needs to confirm that they want to receive your emails give the subscriber instructions as to what they need to do.

For example, “you will receive an email with a confirmation link in it. Click on that link if you really want to receive my emails in the future”.

Here is what my thank you page call to action looks like:

Video call to actions

If you are using video call to actions you can create a video that gives similar instructions to your subscriber.

In the video you first of all want to introduce yourself, then tell the subscriber what to expect with any emails that you send to them.

By doing this you have a higher chance of your first email being opened because the subscriber has been informed about the arrival of the email, is aware that an email will be in their inbox or junk mail and so is more likely to take action to find the email and open it.

Exactly What You Should Be Writing In Your First Email

Let’s break down the anatomy of the first email.

Most marketers say that whilst your first email is opened by many subscribers it is important not to overload it with content.

I want to add to that it’s important that the first email is overloaded with the right content. Sometimes we can go on and on about things irrelevant to our readers which turn them off, but if you deliver the right content, even if it is overloaded, you will have a subscriber holding on for your other emails.

Let’s dive right into it.

I think your first email should have the following components:

• Thank you
• About me
• Who is the email list for
• What they will expect to receive from you
• How to continue receiving your emails
• How to connect with you
• What happens next

This outline can be applied to any email series, whether it’s for a course, a consultation, subscribing to a newsletter, etc.

Thank you

This is an obvious requirement and it is where you express your gratitude to the subscriber for trading their email address for joining your email list.

In this part I like to express how excited I am for them to choose me and join with me.

It’s all about giving the impression that they are in the right place and they will not be disappointed because of what you’re about to deliver.

You want to make your subscriber feel welcomed. So be as happy as you can with your words.

About me

If your subscriber has not already figured out who you are from your website or marketing material it’s a good idea to cover this again in a short blurb about you.

In this section you want you to introduce yourself again.

Tell them about your history in whatever niche you’re a part of and give the reason why you are qualified to educate them about what they’re about to learn.

So for example, in my email course about making money blogging, I tell the subscriber my history with blogging and what I have achieved since I started.

It is important to let your subscriber know that you have experience and you have gotten results before so you know what you’re talking about.

People want to learn from others, so if that is you who have had success then let them know about that success.

Who is the email list for

You want to make sure that your subscriber is qualified to be on your email list. So by stating who the content is for, will help the subscriber understand whether the information that they are about to receive is actually what they want to learn from.

For example, if I want to learn more about SEO but find myself on an email list that talks about Pinterest, then I know I am not in the right place.

Wouldn’t it be great if you can have only the right people that matter on your email list?

It would definitely help filter out those who stumbled into your email list out of curiousity and retain those who actually want to learn what you have to teach.

This section therefore should briefly explain what type of information the subscriber will learn from the email list.

And if it does not suit them you can politely invite the subscriber to unsubscribe from the email list by pointing them to the unsubscribe link.

Don’t be disappointed if you find many unsubscribes happen after this. It is a good sign and helps you build a healthy email list that is more likely to open your future emails and click through to your links.

What they will expect to receive from you

I think it’s  important to let your subscribers know what they will be getting from you.

It just sets their expectations for the type of content they will receive.

If you email list is specifically for a course feel free to outline the course structure. You can break down what the topics of discussion will be every day.

That way, you will have an email list that is looking forward to your emails as they already know what they’re going to receive from day one.

I find that when I tell my subscribers what they are getting each day, my open rates are higher in follow up emails.

I suppose it is something that they are looking forward to.

How to continue receiving your emails

This is not absolutely necessary but with so many emails being sent to the junk folder I think it is important that we ask our subscribers to whitelist our emails so that all future emails are delivered straight to their inbox.

It is more than likely that if the subscriber has opted in for a series of emails where they are likely to receive value, that they will want to ensure that they always see the email.

So this is where you can instruct the subscriber to take action so that they continue to receive your emails.

I like to say something like “please whitelist my email address so that you don’t miss an email from me”.

I also like to tell them how to whitelist it as some people are not really sure how to do this.

How to connect with you

People buy from people which is why this is a necessary step that you should take to get your subscriber from the inbox to any social media outlets that you are active on.

This helps your subscriber see that you are a real person.

It helps them to interact with you, thereby building the relationship and forging that closer connection which is a strong driver of sales.

When you get the subscriber to connect with you in person, they get to know more about you and also builds trust with you.

I would recommend sharing the easiest way to connect with you. Whether that’s on Facebook or Instagram.

Some people go as far as providing their contact number or Skype contact. This is not absolutely necessary unless contact by phone can help close a sale quicker.

This is where you decide what mediums are best for your subscriber to connect with you.

What happens next

Finally you can conclude your email by telling your subscriber what they can expect next. Whether that is waiting for the second email which comes the day or week after.

It’s an informative way of closing the email and preparing the subscriber for your next action.

Other Example Templates Of Welcome Emails That You Can Take Inspiration From

Whilst I have set out a comprehensive guide to welcome emails and everything that should be in it, there are other welcome emails which are short and simple.

However these shorter welcome email templates are useful for eCommerce brands.

If you are a brand that is providing a professional service such as consulting, coaching, advising you may wish to opt for the long form welcome email.

Here are some email templates from eCommerce brands.

Here’s Camelbak.

Notice how the first thing the email says is “thank you”. It also includes a hint of what the reader is likely to receive in future emails, “hydration tips, pack hacks and previews of new gear”.

NaturallyCurly

Another example of what you can expect from being on an email list, Naturally Curly tells their subscribers “you are now signed up for…”

Wrapping up

So that’s my complete guide to welcome emails.

It is the first and most important email that you should be writing, so use the points that I included here to craft your first email and make sure to get it right.

Remember email list building is all about building relationships. So even if you get the best first email, what comes after is also important so pay attention to this as well.

Give me some love in the comments by letting me know whether you like long or short form welcome emails.

Cheers

The post How To Write A Welcome Email That Gets Opened Every Time appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.