Email marketing is a numbers game. The higher your conversion rates, the larger your list will be. The larger your list, the more sales you will make.
But there’s more to improving conversions and growing your list than just creating better offers and attracting more traffic. Each piece of your email list building and marketing effort has a job to do, and it’s up to you to make sure it’s performing as well as possible.
That’s where split-testing will come in handy. By tracking the results you get, then making incremental changes and comparing the numbers, you’ll begin to see the patterns that make a difference in your efforts.
And that’s the basis of split testing: tweaking, tracking and testing with a clear goal of continuous improvement.
What Can You Split-Test?
A better question might be, “What can’t you split-test?” Because frankly, you can test just about everything, including:
Subject lines
Calls to action
Button colors
Fonts and text colors
Opt-in incentives
Landing page layout
But here’s the trick to a good split-test: Only test one single change at a time.
You might be tempted to rewrite your headline and your call to action and your button text, but don’t. While it may seem more efficient, the problem with this approach is that you’ll have no way of knowing which change had an effect on your conversions. Did they go up because of the call to action? Or drop because of the subject line? .
Who knows?
Instead, make systematic changes to your landing pages and carefully track results. That’s the only way to know what’s working—and what’s not.
Most landing page tools such as LeadPages and ClickFunnels have built-in tools for split-testing. If you’re not using these tools, you can also set up split tests using your Google Webmaster tools account.
Testing Open and Click Rates
Your email list manager should offer a way to split-test your emails as well. Open rates are critical when it comes to email marketing and list engagement. We all know that if your audience isn’t opening your email, they’re not reading it either!
You can easily improve your open rates by split-testing subject lines to determine the format and style most likely to get your readers’ attention.
To improve your click rates, test your email’s call to action. Set up two identical emails— same subject line and same content—but change the call to action to see which gets the best response from your list. You’ll be able to use this information in later campaigns to improve click-throughs on all your emails.
Just like list-building, it’s never too early to begin split-testing. There’s no magical number of opt-ins you must have to get started. There’s no amount of traffic that’s too small. So don’t wait any longer, start split testing your opt-in forms and emails, so you can benefit from the best conversion rates possible.
The money is not in a huge list, the money is in the right list. In other words, your list has to be filed with the right people, targeted subscribers who are interested in what you offer. It doesn’t matter how big your list grows if it is filled with the wrong people, people who have no interest in what you have to offer. The wrong people will not open your emails, click on your links, or buy from you.
With this in mind, our goal for list building is to attract the right subscribers. But first, we have to identify what “right” means.
Identifying the right subscribers means finding targeted, responsive people, and getting them to subscribe to your list. This is the goal for list building. If you can accomplish this, you can grow a profitable list. Therefore, this is probably one of the most, if not THE most, important lesson in the entire challenge!
Who is your dream client or customer? Let’s paint a picture of this person as best we can, down to the smallest details, including
Gender
Age
Marital status
Family status
Income level
Educational level
Professional level
Defining all of these elements about your ideal client or customer helps you to build what is known as a customer avatar. This customer avatar is the person you are speaking to, writing to, and marketing to in all of your communication. Some people go so far as to give this customer avatar a name. It may sound strange, but it works!
This customer avatar symbolizes the people you want to sign up for your list. When you know and understand your ideal client or customer, you can create content that speaks directly to them. Whether you’re creating an opt-in page, offer, or writing emails, speak to this one person. Now you can probably see why some people give their avatar a name, it makes it easier to focus on a specific person when you’re writing.
Once you know who your ideal client or customer is, you have to go find them online! Consider where they are already communicating about the kinds of products and services you offer, and where they go to find out about your industry and your competitors.
What social media platforms are they using? What blogs and magazines are they reading? Where do they go for information – forums, groups, niche websites, etc.?
Create a list of all of these websites for you to use as we move further along in the challenge. You will need to meet your audience where they are, get in front of them, and drive them back to your website. Therefore, having this list will come in handy!
If you are not already familiar with all of the blogs, magazines, social media platforms, forums and groups that your ideal client or customer is using, now is the time to study. Study all of these places and formats to see what’s popular and listen to what your audience says is great and what is lacking. This will help you to position yourself in the market, and support your list building efforts!
Short on cash… send an email to your list. The money is in the list. If you’ve been around the internet for any length of time, I’m sure you have heard any of the “money is in the list” cliches that people often quote.
It may not be as easy as some people make it out to be, but it is closer to the truth than not. When you build a targeted list of subscribers, and provide value and insights, you earn their trust. Therefore, when you promote your products and services, you can actually generate revenue with your emails. As a result, the “money is in the list” cliché become the truth. The know, like and trust factor is a real thing.
First things first, you have to build a list of targeted subscribers. No matter what industry you are in, or what stage of business you are in, you can benefit from a larger, more targeted list.
Welcome to the List Building Challenge!
The challenge is designed to help you to take daily action to grow your list!
Who Is The Challenge For
Please note, this list building challenge is not for people completely new to email marketing. This challenge is for people who are already getting subscribers to at least one list. The list building challenge is for people to learn more advanced list building strategies to grow lists faster, and with more targeted subscribers.
Audit Your List Building Systems
Before we can begin with any new initiatives to grow our lists (I’m taking action as a participant too), we have to look at where we are now. We will also look at the systems we have set up, and what services are currently being used, in the event you want to make some changes as you learn more about list building.
Decide which list you want to focus on for the length of this challenge. You may have more than one list and multiple opt-in offers right now, and that is okay. However, for the purposes of this challenge, it is best to pick a single list that you want to grow. Then, you can rinse and repeat the process for each additional list you want to grow.
Once you have selected the list, review the opt-in form or opt-in page. Is it up to date and relevant? Does it speak to the people you are trying to attract?
Subscribe to your own list to review your funnel. Review all of the emails and pages you have as part of the subscriber process, including the welcome email and thank you page. Click on all the links as though you are a new subscriber to ensure everything is working properly and you do not have any broken links. Review for typos and formatting as well.
Once you have reviewed and fixed everything in the email sequence, consider all the ways you could enhance what you have now, from the opt-in offer itself to the auto responders and specific links within each of your emails.
Now that you have completed an audit of your existing subscription process, you will be all set to begin the List Building Challenge! Set a reminder to visit the blog every day.
Continuing with our list building theme, enticing your readers to join your list is just a small part of your overall list-building goal. The larger component is keeping them engaged. Do that right, and they’ll reward you with more sales—not only of your products and services, but those of your JV and affiliate partners as well. That said, here’s the number one thing your readers are looking for: solutions to their problem. It’s ultimately why they’ve joined your list in the first place. Your opt-in incentive solved a problem they were having, and now they’re counting on you to continue to give the solutions they need.
These solutions can take many forms, including:
Straight Information This is like a blog post or article. It answers a question (much like this email does) your readers have and gives them the info they need to move to the next step. Perhaps you discovered a simpler way to track Facebook ad conversions, or found some interesting stats on content marketing, or maybe you learned a new way to promote Kindle books. Share this with your readers. Don’t ask for anything in return; just send them the info they need. By offering value-packed information only emails, you’ll show your list members that you’re not just another marketer trying to sell them something. Instead, you’ll be seen as a valuable source of information (and your open rates will improve, too). Offers Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t ever sell anything to your list. You’d be shooting yourself in the foot if you did that. Not to mention you’d go broke pretty quickly!
In fact, since your readers have trusted you to give them the very best information available in your niche, it’s important that you DO create and send them offers. They need your:
Coaching programs
Self-study training
eBooks and guides
Private coaching and mentoring
So be sure to include these offers in your mailings from time to time.
Tools and Training from Others As I’ve already mentioned, your audience is depending on you to find and share the best information in your niche. Sometimes, that will take the form a specialized workshop, a free webinar of an affiliate offer for a new tool or other offers. If you’re new to list building, it might be helpful for you to remember that these offers are meant to help your audience, not sell to them. Even though you might earn a small commission, it’s likely not your primary goal. When you approach your email from the standpoint of being helpful rather than being a sales person, it’s much easier to get past that “what should I mail” question.
Let’s talk about list building, or more specifically why you need to build a list in the first place. It doesn’t matter what form your online presence takes – be it blogging, creating video content, running an online store or growing a social media presence – any online business can benefit from having a list and focusing on growing your subscriber base.
What makes email lists so special? It gives you a chance to talk directly to your audience. You don’t have to wait for them to come to your blog or login into Instagram to see your content, your message, and your offers. Instead you get to go to them … their email inbox to be more specific.
While blog posts, videos, and social media posts lend themselves to talking to your entire audience at once, with email… even when you’re writing an email to a larger list, it allows you to talk to each reader individually. While your blog posts are written to a whole segment of your audience, you can sound more personal and personable with your list.
Most importantly though, email marketing converts better than any other form of marketing and it’s the main reason all your other marketing efforts should focus on growing and expanding your list. In other words, the list allows you to make a living from your online business.
Plus, you have a chance to get to know your readers better. You can build a relationship with them through the daily or weekly emails you send to them (as well as their replies). You start to build trust with your audience. Why is that important? Because once you have earned that trust, they will gladly take you up on the offers you send them via email. And provided you treat your list well and share great stuff full of value, it’s sustainable.
