Are the email open rates of your AWeber broadcasts on the floor? Is it hurting the profits of your online business?
Today I want to talk about how I've been able to build a list of just over 850 people in the last 5 months and get an average of 25% open rate and 11% click through rate for every email I send.
There are a lot of people nowadays claiming that email marketing is dead! Or not as effective as it once was. Well I am here to tell you that is a load of CRAP!
There is just a different approach that you have to take to really get great results with your email marketing efforts.
And if you are NOT utilizing your blog to build your list I'm telling you right now you are shooting yourself in the FACE! I'll take an opt-in over a RSS subscribers ALL DAY LONG!
How To Increase Your Email Open Rates
The first thing is to not think of your subscribers as potential customers or how quickly you can squeeze out a commission. Remember that they are human beings and they came to you and gave you their email address because they saw a solution to a problem at your optin page.
Your first priority should be to give them the answer to their problem as quickly as possible without a hundred and one loop holes to go through.
Delivering your free offer to them as quickly as humanly possible is the first building block to them trusting you and when people trust you that's when they open your email, that's when they buy from you.
So now that they are on your list and you over delivered on your free offer (which I assume you have) let's talk about how you build that trust. Right now they do not know you from Adam and it's your responsibility to close that gap.
Every time someone subscribes to my list the first email they get is of course my free offer which is access to my WordPress Video Tutorials which is delivered immediately.
The 2 week Rule and The Sequence
For the next 2 weeks they DO NOT get any kind of promotional email from me. This is VERY important!!
The next 3 emails are all about building rapport and showing them that I'm a true human being who truly cares about helping them and is thankful they have signed up to my list.
The following will be about how I have my AWeber Follow Up sequence set up in my auto responder 
if you do not know what a follow up email is VS a broadcast just quickly Google it.
Follow up email #2 (which I feel is the most powerful) is delivered the very next day which is a simple email welcoming them aboard my free training.
It also tells them how they can contact me at any time should they have any problems and I list 3 ways they can easily reach me. THAT IS IT! Seriously no additional links to click no nothing.
Follow up email #3 is ALL about building rapport on a personal level. I put together a blog post titled “19 things you don't know about JZ” and it's an article listing 19 things about myself such as my age, where I'm from and things I like to do.
Now when was the last time you got an email from an online marketer willing to share personal information with you? Probably never.
Do not be afraid to pull the curtain down and let your subscribers in. This was actually pretty fun because I actually found out I have the same birthday as two of my subscribers.
Email Follow up #4 is ALL about building rapport on a business level. For this email I put together a no optin, blog page titled “How I had my First $156 Day Online” and it's basically a 2 part video series on the exact system I use to make money online.
This is very powerful because not only do they now know me on a personal level but they also know that I have had success online and I position myself as someone who walks his talk.
That is pretty much it when it comes to the setup of my follow up sequence. As you can see I have
- Delivered my free offer immediately
- Let them in on a personal level
- Let them in on a business level and shared my success
The Most Important Rule To Increase Your Email Open Rates
The next step from here is probably the MOST important piece to this whole article.
There is nothing more annoying to me then opting in to someone's list and a few hours after I get their free offer I immediately get hit with a promotional email asking me to buy something.
This can be a huge factor to someone quickly unsubscribing from your list.
Luckily for you this is easily solved within your autoresponder dashboard. What I am refering to is creating “segments” of your lists before sending out any broadcasts.
I feel this is a way under used feature for many email marketers. Creating segments allows you to email a certain portion of your list as opposed to the whole list. So someone like me who just signed up to your list doesn't immediately get the broadcast you sent promoting a product for sale.
I ALWAYS create a segment before I send out a broadcast and I follow the same 2 week rule. When I create a segment I make sure it excludes everyone who has been added to my list within the last 2 weeks so my follow up sequence does it's magic of building rapport.
With this set up I rarely get open rates under 20%. If you follow this set up or something similar where you take the time to really connect and show your subscribers you truly care then your open and click through rate should increase.
One last rule of thumb I like to follow is a 3:1 content vs promotional email ratio. Meaning for every promotional email I plan to send I make sure I send 3 non promotional emails with great content FIRST!
That's it guys I hope this article helps you to better your rapport building and email marketing.
To Your Email Open Rate Success,
P.S. If you found this bad boy helpful why not give it a Like or Share on Facebook or leave a comment below
Hello Joshua!
I really admire and appreciate your firm and well fabricated description on How To Increase Your Email Open Rates,I do believe that trust is the first building block for your business to be get successful,developing trust to your customers is very important and it can be accomplish only by getting realistic to them and solving there problems whenever they need it.I have liked your idea to maintain 2 weeks gap between your first free offers and thank you mail and promotional emails.You have showed here the best use of Autoresponder by setting up Follow Up sequence.I really appreciate your Follow Up email#3,I have never seen any online marketer willing to share there personal information.Its a great idea to build up trust with your followers.Thank you for sharing so many great,valuable,considerable and important info with us.
Good Luck and God Bless!!
Hey Samuel! First off is Joshua really your last name? or Middle name..that’s AWESOME! LOL
And you are right man bridging the gap is very important. Too many people get impatient when building their and want to start squeezing out commissions as soon as possible.
To be quite honest as well I rarely send out promo emails. Mostly emails to articles on my blog to further assist my subscribers.
Though you had given a great sequence of how email series should work, but I still believe in writing a good title headline is the most important of all for the reason the first thing you need to do is NOT to get the email open but to get people to SEE your email.
This is how I always almost got 40% to 50% of my email I personally written to get open.
Here’s a tittle that might work well with your “10 thing you do not know about me (pics inside)”
Adding a “pics inside” at the back will sure make the person reading the mail to open the email, I mean who doesn’t want to know 10 things about you with pictures to even show you, just imagine you are a female blogger, what sort of open rate will that be…
It’s kind of like a trick of curiosity I learn from Frank Kern and believe it or not it does work…
One more title that have the most open rate is this “bad news” trust me I had try before on one of my other niche list and got 50% to 60% open rate.
Wong! Whats going on my friend!
I gota tell you man you sure are the master at headlines and images. I was on your blog yesterday having a look around and started to see a nice pattern in your enticing Headlines and steamy thumbnail pictures LOL
I love your idea and I am heading over to my aweber account right now to change the headline.
Although I have not studied up on writing copy or headlines much (which I MUST do ASAP) I agree with you email titles do play a big roll.
How about a rockin post from The Bad Blogger on your Top 10 Headlines that got over 40% open rates…I would be so down to read that puppy!
Pingback: BizSugar.com
Hey Joshua,
Thanks for sharing your email sequence. This is a really great strategy to build up rapport with your subscribers. I also enjoy the segment creation technique where you exclude the new subscribers. This is something that people might totally ignore and yet is something to watch out when broadcasting.
Cheers,
Ming
Hey Ming! Thank you brother!
You are totally right something that takes 30 seconds to do and most people ignore it because they are most likely concerned with making sales and want to send the email to their WHOLE list!
Thanks for the tips you shared here! it contains a great content, i have like your idea to maintain two weeks gap between your first free offers and thank you mail and promotional emails.
Hey Gena! I think two weeks of rapport building emails is an ideal set up. 8) thank you for stopping by!
Haven’t tried the email marketing yet,but our subscribers respond very well and we are happy with the conversion rate
Bishwajeet man you should really look into building your email list.
In my opinion it’s the most powerful thing any online or offline business can do to build a solid long term business. It allows you to have direct access to your customers.
One thing I wish Aweber did was the ability to exclude the new subscribers from receiving my broadcasts that might contain some promotional information.
I don’t do auto sequences on my blog, only live broadcasts.
Thanks for the link, Joshua!
Hey Ana! I cover how you can do this in the bottom half of the Article 8)
Aweber allows you to save a part of your list as a “segment” so that the brand new people don’t get hit with a promo email right after signing up to you list.
Once you save your segment and you write your broadcasts you can select it from where it says “send this email to “All Subscribers” just change it to the segment you just saved.
I’d be happy to walk you through it if you need help.
I do this everytime I send an email
Yes, I did read the post, Joshua. LOL
Still can’t figure out how to exclude certain subscribers from my broadcasts.
I think I do need you to walk me through it….
Ana
Hey Ana I’d be glad to 🙂
I can possibly post a guest post on your blog? Maybe with a video walking you through the process.
Just let me know I will work on the video anyhow. I can either post to your blog or mine.
I agree with Wong Chendong, you need people to actually see your emails before they decide to open them. I think the problem lies where people opt-in to lists to get their freebie and then completely ignore any follow up emails. Before you can build any type of rapport with them, you must give them another reason to keep reading your emails in your headline.
That is very true Ozio! There are even people who have opted in to my list and immediately opt out.
This is just a part of list building and it’s just a matter of numbers and weeding those people out.
Thanks a lot for the tips. I Have just started a new project and I am thinking about the promotion and your advice is what I need right now.
Hi, Joshua,
thumbs up for the post-very detailed, straight to the point and useful! I see you’ve put lots of effort in it and generously shared your experience considering email open rates.
I, honestly, didn’t know that much about the subject, so I am glad to hear a different approach is needed to be worked out in order to prove that email marketing is still not dead. Creating segments and respecting the two week rule are helpful tips for anyone interested in improving this area.
Thank you Kristina 🙂 I try to help where I can. And yes I think the 2 week rule and segments is the main reason I am able to build that relationship and increase my open rates.
Great post Joshua, Email marketing is something I’m getting back into. I’ve used AWeber for years and didn’t even realize there was a function to save a part of my list as a “segment”. It sounds like a valuable tool and I’m going to put it to use.
BRIAN!! how’s it going my friend! I wanted to thank you for your post on profiles. Added my button to all my sites and going to give you a shoutout when i blog about it.
And yes defintiely get back into email marketing. It’s the most valuable asset I currently have in my business.
Thanks Joshua. I’m pretty excited about the “segment” feature of AWeber. I looked into it on their blog and help center and there’s a wealth of info there. Very exciting is the ability to segment subscribers that have already clicked previous links. If someone clicked a link in your last broadcast on cat toys you can target that same segment when you promote other cat products, as an example. Incredibly powerful! Now all I need if subscribers. BTW, I’m interested in the plugin you are using for your opt-in pop-in form on your site. Have you posted about it? Thanks.
Absolutely Brian! Aweber has some really cool features. You can also mail specifically to people who have opened your emails or not opened your email etc plus as you said those who clicked vs those who didnt.
This is also great for split testing. You can try a different Title the second time around and see if you get more opens.
I have not blogged about the pop up I use but it’s called pop up domination and you can learn more about it here http://zamuraiblogger.com/popupdom (aff link)
I have tried 3 different kinds of pop ups and this one works the best hands down. Let me know if you have questions.
Hello Joshua!
Thanks for those great tips, I’ll really look into some of your suggestions.
I’ve been reading about email marketing for quite some time and I want to give it a try.
Thanks 🙂
Your Welcome Jason! Glad I can help and thanks for stopping by 8)
Having experience from when email marketing was really effective, I can say your open rates and click thrus are excellent. The really hard thing these days is building those lists. Once I had a health/fitness site and I was able to build a 60,000 list in just over a year. Those days are gone, but I still believe in the over all effectiveness of email lists if you can build rapport as you mentioned.
WOW John 60K list! That is awesome! Do you no longer have that list?
And yes it has become more difficult to build a list and you really have to over deliver on your free offer to gain great respect.
The segment creation technique where you exclude the new subscribers is very stunning and great. great write up.
Thank you Reeha! I would have to agree with you that Joshua guy shared some great tips LOL 8)
Yeah indeed, thanks for sharing Joshua
I don’t know who it is that’s saying e-mail marketing is dead, but I think they’re very wrong! With the right mindset and tools, e-mail marketing can be just as effective as it ever was, if not more so… Thanks for these tips, they’re really helpful! 🙂
Laurie
I agree Laurie! Also truly giving a crap and continuing to help those subscribers is part of the equation.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Hello Joshua. I have one question fro you. Where did you get that dude with the hand?
Hey Ivin! It was part actually part of a Graphics pack shared with me by Chris Farrell. I grew very fond of the little guy and carry him around wherever I go.
I promise I’m not crazy LOL
I can send him over if you’d like just shoot me a message.
Hello Joshua. I got to say I’m really impressed by your method and approach in email marketing. I also thought it was dead just because I personally just don’t read such e-mails anymore, I immediately unsubscribe or mark it as spam.
Hey Christian trust me I feel where you’re coming from! There are many marketers who completely ABUSE their list and make it harder for the rest of us.
But I think if you’re honest and provide great content you will gain the respect of your list.
Hi Joshua. Thanks for sharing this. I really like this one. It’s a very nice and interesting article to share.
thank you Andrew really appreciate it! 8)
Its not always about having a autoresponder sequence,many a time your readers do not even look at your mails. It should look like you really care for them, rather than you are just interested in talking business.
I agree Josh! It’s no wonder we have the same name great minds think alike 8)
Hey Joshua,
Loving the clear way you’ve laid out your system for this. Nice work.
It’s a delicate issue, of course you want to build trust and rapport with your list, but I also think it’s possible to lean too far away from the marketing side.
For example, I’ve known marketers who’ve not put any offers or pitches in for the first months and then tried to bring them in slowly – but their list has been conditioned to expect freebies – so they complain and unsubscribe.
I think it’s important to let your list know from the outset that you will promote stuff to them – just not in a spammy, aggressive or irrrelevant way.
Anyway, I’m about to start a new list over on my blog, so I’m happy to read your post… Thanks dude 🙂
Hey Jym! That is very true. And that’s where the quality of the list comes into play too.
I am going to focus on building a list of buyers as well. I had a friend recently do this and his open rates have skyrocketed just because he sold on a product on the Warrior Forum and built a list of about 200 people who are responsive and open emails.
I think it all comes down to being up front. I recently joined Anna Hoffmans list and she states it from the beginning that she will be promoting products and I liked the way she set it up. So I will incorporate that into my marketing which I have NOT done.
Thank you Reeha! really appreciate it! Hope your email marketing ROCKS IT!
Awesome James congrats on your success! Keep building the list but more importantly the relationship with the list.
As its true that folks nowadays consider Email Marketing as less effective than previous days but this is not true and still this is a most powerful way of marketing and promotion.
And the only reason behind it is LACK of TRUST among the folks with each others. As this techniques works only when you can able to win trust and present yourself as genuine one.
Thus thanks a lot for showing 3 great and very much effective ways to build trust among the folks and so that we get our desired results from this.
Thank you Meg! 8) And you are 100% correct Trust is harder to gain nowadays with all the junk, scam marketers out there trying to make a quick buck.
Thanks for stopping by
Internet marketing is no doubt an excellent way of global customers attraction and to go for beyond limits.Yet I will agree with the comments that trust is the basic thing to do.There are so many stories of some fake people on the internet and it is just making it dirty for new comers and for the original ones.
I agree with you Fitness trainer. WAY too many junk marketers on the net today
Hey Josh! Amazing tips out here to increase email open rates! I would surely agree that email marketing, if done properly, could be really effective for a blog!
Hi Josh,
Some great tips here – very informative. I’ve just set up my autoresponder and have been strategizing about this very detail. I think a 2-week buffer is perfect.
On another note, how long does your current autoresponder run? With this I mean, if I were to subscribe to your newsletter, how many months of emails do you currently have set to automatically be sent out?
Thanks again and have a fantastic Christmas & New Year!
Regards,
Derek