You know that visitors to your site may not return, for a number of reasons.  Very likely, they won’t bookmark your site, or remember how they arrived to it.

Also, you know that the value of a list is like gold.

The obvious answer here, is “Collect Email Addresses of Your Visitors”.

But, why would anyone just give you their email address?  Really?  Why would they?  (Everyone is inundated with junk mail and sales emails in their in-box — why do they want more from you, or risk you’ll sell their data?)

The answer:  You must provide something of value, in exchange for their valuable personal information.

..and don’t think that you can just quickly throw something super-simple together and expect prospects to flock to sign up.  (Exception:  If you’re an author, you can offer up a chapter of your book as a sample.  I’d say that’s pretty simple”)

Remember that “something of value” means “something that the PROSPECT values – not what you hope they’ll value”.  For instance, I’d prefer a “Free White Paper (on the technology that differentiates your software)”, over the “opportunity” to receive your sales emails, via a webform reading, “Get our features sent to you by email”.  (Of course, you’ll send the features in both instances — but, compel me to sign up for it, via a free white paper — the “something of value to me”. )

The content of your email series (the sales and marketing messaging) is of value to YOU, not to the prospect.  They don’t want to think that they’re going to be “sold”.  They need something that THEY value first; then, you can “sell” them.
Also, be sure you give the prospect confidence in your privacy policies, and never betray that trust.  Use terms like “We’ll never spam you, and you can opt out at any time.  Your information is secure.”)

Every Email Marketing Software vendor offers the basic “email capture” webform.  The differentiators in the webform process are:

• Does the email marketing software vendor provide a variety of webform template, so I can present an attractive, compelling webform to prospects?
• Are a variety of “pop up”, ‘pop-under”, “pop out”, “hover box”, “exit pop”, etc., options are available?

Aweber’s webforms currently offer only a simple “name” and “email address” webform by default.  They do offer plenty of popup options, including an “unblockable” hover box.  (I used it on http://mp3scoop.com )

So remember — capture email addresses of visitors.  Without it, your visitors are annonymous, and you’ll never have the ability to commicate with them again, provided they never return.  Instead, you’ll have the ability to remain “top of mind” of your prospects, and your messaging will be delivered in your preferred format and timing.

But – you must offer prospects something of value, in order to begin.

What ideas have you seen work?  What “value” did an advertiser that prompted you to get on their autoresponder / sales series?

When you send your email marketing campaigns (either followup autoresponders, broadcasts, etc.) there are a number of factors that affect your overall conversion rate.

Open Rates

The number of people who’ve received your message in their Inbox, who take the time to OPEN your message, is determined, predominantly, by the subject line.  Your “from name” and “from address” may affect your open rate, too — but, the largest factor in how many of your recipients (who received your email in their inbox) OPEN your message, is based upon the SUBJECT LINE.

Test at least 3 different subject lines.  Then, utilize the one that has provided you with the best open rates.

Click Through Rates

In your message, you can have a number of “call to action” links that are designed to generate a specific response.  You may link to a particular product’s “buy now” page, or you may offer a discount or special bonus if the subscriber purchases now, or you may offer a free white paper or case study.

Regardless of the call to action:
What verbiage do you use in the header of this “offer”?
(ex: “Limited time offer”, or “Free White Paper!”)

What content do you use to compel the subscriber to act?
(ex: “Free shipping”, or “Get Product B when you buy Product A now!”)

What “action button” do you use?
(e.g. “submit”, or “buy now!”)

Assuming you’re testing only one of these “offers” in your email followup, you want to test these variables to create the most Click-Worthy offer you can.  Taking the time to test these variables can add up to significant increase in overall conversions.

Landing Page

After the subscriber has clicked on your link within your email message, what do they see on your site?  Is the content of your landing page consistent with what they read in your email?  For example, if you offer the subscriber “Free Shipping if you order today” — do you simply take them to the product page?  Does the product page show “Free Shipping – today only!”?  Or, do you take them to a special landing page, designed with this offer in mind?

Order Process

This final component of conversion should never be overlooked.  Does your ecommerce solution require login before ordering?  Does it require multiple steps before ordering is complete?  Do you accept all forms of payment, or only paypal?  What is your shopping cart abandonment rate?  These factors certainly play into the overall conversion rate for ALL of your traffic sources, not just your email campaigns.  Be sure to have the best shopping cart conversion rate possible!

Remember:  The conversion process doesn’t end with the click from your email.  It’s nice to have clicks, but it’s better to have overall conversions!

So, test away, and optimize your campaigns.

Our Preferred Email Marketing Software Vendors with good testing solutions are:

1. Arial Software – Campaign (Director and Enterprise)
2. Lyris HQ – Email Solutions and WebAnalytics
3. Aweber

Links to A/B Testing Resources:
MarketingExperiments.com
–I love Dr. Flint McGlaughin’s work at MarketingExperiments.com.  I’ve been a fan for many years.

WilsonWeb.com
–I love Dr. Ralph Wilson’s content and reviews, too!  I’ve been a fan for many years, here, too!

Info:
http://www.lunametrics.com/aboutus/archives/WhatisAB-Testing.php

Email Marketing Software, “Aweber” – The Initial Review.

INITIAL REVIEW – IMPORTANT NOTES:
As I review email marketing software, often times, I’ll give my raw “Initial Review”.  It’s not very structured — it’s just what I experienced when I tried it for the first time.

I like to think that I’m a pretty good judge of character in people — and a good judge of software.  First impressions are important in both — so, I want to give you my first impressions.

So, without further adieu, here is my “INITIAL IMPRESSION REVIEW” of Aweber.

AWeber:  The Initial Review…

Summary:  Pretty much ever marketer I know in the Affiliate Marketing Space is using Aweber.  It’s inexpensive, very easy to use and apparently has GREAT Delivery.

My take:  “Nice and simple — but, since it’s targeted to small businesses, you’d think a few things would be easier.”

I signed up, and within an hour I had already setup 3 webforms, and deployed 2 of them on 2 different sites.

The interface was relatively simple and easy to understand. The layout is very intuitive, and they offer a good “getting started” welcome screen that should help most beginners.  Better still, they offer “how to get started:  live demo” on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

Also, I liked how they remind you that you must complete a certain step that corresponds with a task you’re completing.  Like:  You haven’t set a “reply to address, (you need to do this now)”, etc.  Very helpful.

There are plenty of getting started tutorials, in the format that you prefer: videos, an HTML version and a PDF version – so you can follow along with the help to get started as you see fit.

There seem to be some pretty comprehensive “advanced” features that are applicable to many small businesses –  like “email parser”:  This feature lets specific shopping carts, or paypal, etc., send receipts to your Aweber address for your customer list, and will parse out the data from their receipt into your email system.  That way, you know what they purchased, who they are, and they’ll receive your followups for that list.  Pretty nice and simple integration with a cart, if you ask me.

But, I do have a few critiques.

Using my home address by default in the footer.
I entered my personal information upon signup, because the instructions read “just for billing purposes”, won’t be shared.  However, upon receiving my first broadcast sent from Aweber, I saw my home address in the footer.

YIKES!  That was freaky, because as of deploying my webforms, I already had a couple subscribers — and they have my home address now.  Whew – glad I caught that!  (It’s actually very easy to set the global property of “footer” — I just wish they’d have asked first, or warned me to check it.)

Expected some additional simplification.
Also, since “everyone” I know uses (and many of them Love) Aweber, I really thought a few things would have been much easier. Like:

1) WebForms – No Good “Plug and Go” Templates.
You can easily create webforms via the included editor software (basically, like MS Word).

However, I expected to see several template options (nicely designed, with selectable button texts, editable headings, body text and / or call to action.

2) “Name” vs. “First name” and “Last Name”
By default, webforms use “name” and “email” as fields.  Is “name” the full name, or the “first name”? I couldn’t tell.

I want to be sure to have first and last names in *separate* fields.  The easiest way, that I could uncover, was to add a custom field for “last name”, and change the label of “name” to “first name”.  It’s odd to create a custom field for “last name”, as it’s a global field.  There is just no way of selecting the global fields that are available, and editing the label.

3) WebForm Popup Options – Missing one important frequency filter
I like the multiple popup options for the webforms.  There are plenty.  I happen to prefer the “Lighbox Hover” version.  I also like how they offer A/B testing of your WebForms — very important in optimizing your subscription conversions.

They also offer a few options for frequency of the pop up per visitor – but, they miss one important one, which is (narratively):  “Don’t show the popup to my current subscribers”.  Why would I want my subscribers to be inited again to subscribe?  It’s just confusing.  But, for those who didn’t subscribe in the last 3 visits — sure, I want to re-suggest that they subscribe.  It’s a catch 22.

Templates are available, but, hmmm.
I guess I’m being extra picky here.  They have plenty of templates, and these should work for most small businesses.  I don’t know..  I just wasn’t too impressed.  But then again, I need to give it another look.

What?  No Surveys?
I was expecting to be able to send followup surveys to my subscribers.  I don’t know why I expected it — surveys are not on their feature list.  But, Aweber has been around so long, it just seemed natural that they’d provide surveys for lists, so list owners can learn more about individual subscribers, and set targeted followups to these subscribers based on their survey responses.

Hmmm… Targeted followups?  I’ll have to check, but I don’t think that’s a feature that’s in the software.

Reporting is simple.
If you’re looking for a powerhouse reporting system – I didn’t see it.  However — the basics of *what you need* are there.  So, if you don’t need crazy analytics, then the default reports are very sufficient.

Branding – well, kind of…
You can set your own “please check your email and confirm” page, on your own domain, as you can with the “thank you for confirming your subscription”.  That’s a great first step.

However, it doesn’t appear that there is any branding of the click URLs, or the unsubscribe urls’.  (NOTE:  I was wrong about this, see the comment below from Justin, a really nice guy from Aweber, who explains how it works.  So they DO have branding, I just didn’t know it during my initial review.)

Now the good news:  DELIVERABILITY.
Since delivery is such an absolutely critical element of email marketing software — I must say:  Even though you can’t brand your messages as much as I’d prefer, they seem to have a strong handle on their mail servers, and ensuring delivery into the INBOX of your subscribers.

At the end of the day — inbox delivery is the only thing that matters.

All the branding in the world is nothing, if your subscribers never see it.

Since all subscribers to your lists in Aweber are double opt in (meaning, subscribers must confirm via a link that’s sent to their email address before they’re officially on your list):  (a) your lists are “clean” with valid email addresses of subscribers who took the extra step to confirm their intent to receive your communication, and (b) Aweber can have good relations with ISP’s and such — because they can ensure to everyone that all mail coming from their servers are sent to subscribers who have explicitly requested, and confirmed, their consent to receive email from those lists — and, Aweber doesn’t clog up ISP’s with invalid email messages.  This, in a nutshell, means:  Good Delivery to the Inbox of your subscribers.

Well, this is my initial review.  I’ll have more, I’m sure, as I explore Aweber further.

However, my gut says that this solution will work very well for most small businesses — particularly if (a) you don’t mind using their defaults, or (b) you’re a little tech saavy and can make cosmetic changes on your own.

I say:  Give it a try!

A good friend of mine often says, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

In this situation, I agree with him.  Really – Give Aweber a test drive, by filling out the form below.  I may have been a little harsh on the review, but I’m very picky.  This software works for a majority of internet marketers that I know, and almost 50,000 small businesses.  Seriously – try it.  (AND PLEASE — let me know what you think!)

Finally, after years of wanting to create a killer email marketing software reviews & resources network, it’s finally coming together.

First up: EmailMarketingSoftware.com

(On deck: AutoResponderSoftware.com, NewsletterSoftware.com, BulkEmailSoftware.com)

Here, we’ll review email marketing software vendors such as, Constant Contact, Vertical Response, AWeber, Lyris, Campaigner, and more.

Also, we’ll provide new feature updates and insights from these vendors.

Further, we intend to provide plenty of best practices, case studies and real-world examples of quality, successful email marketing campaigns and email strategies to help you make better decisions and marketing planning.

Remember – permission is the key to email. No permission, no email. Period. If you live by that rule, you’ll be in a great starting point to success with email marketing.

Please subscribe to our RSS feed and keep up to date with breaking news, tips, resources, reviews, bets practices and the like.

To your success with Email Marketing!

- Todd