The problem: For the last 17 months or so we’ve managed to capture over 25,000+ subscribers to a single opt-in list in just one of the many lists we have in multiple markets. The problem that I’ve noticed was  some LOW open rates. So I said to myself and my partner “We have a problem here” so I decided to do something about it.

I spent the next 2-3 hours trying to figure out ways to make that list more responsive with more open rates and more clicks that will drive more sales!

And in this post I’ll share with you the exact steps I took to discover what’s going on, why the low open rates are happening and how to beat this obstacle with a simple way — that’s free!

My Initial Goal Was…

To find out what content they like and what they don’t…and I believe that by reviewing the Good VS. Bad open rates and Unsubscription percentage of each follow up email we can identify what they like and what they don’t.

Makes sense right?

So how to you find this information? Easy.

We’re using Aweber so if you also use this great autoresponder service you’ll see at the top navigation bar a tab called Reports (see the screenshot below)…

The "Reports" tab

Once clicking that tab you’ll see TONS of options where you can go very DEEP to understand your subscribers, but in my case the most important sections were:

• Tab #1: Weekly New Subscribers – to find out if your list has an ongoing increase or decrease on weekly basis
• Tab #2: Followup Status – Unsubscriptions – to find out what follow ups make them stick and what makes them leave
• Tab #3: Followup Totals – to find what emails have good and bad open rates

So let’s take a look at each one and see what valuable info I gathered…

Tab #1: Weekly New Subscribers

Purpose: To find out if you have an ongoing increase or decrease of subscribers on weekly basis.

Click to enlarge screenshot

Results: After reviewing these stats, it’s seems that we have about 50-100 more subscribers consistently every week since some changes we made. We’re getting about 550-600 subscribers per week with about 35-45 unsubscriptions per week. Not bad.

Tab #2: Followup Status – Unsubscriptions

Purpose: To find out what follow ups make them stick and what makes them leave.

Click to enlarge screenshots

Results: So as you can see on the screenshot above, in my list I have the following problems:

1. 20% unsubscriptions comes from follow up email 1
2. 21.30% unsubscriptions from follow up email 31
3. 30.10% unsubscriptions follow up email 32

Obviously there are some serious problems here and we had to do something. (I’ll explain what I did at the end of this post.)

Tab #3: Followup Totals

Purpose: To find what emails have good and bad open rates

Click to enlarge screenshot

Results: I consider good open rate emails with over 20% and bad open rates anything below 10%, so here are my “good open rates” emails:

 

• Email 1: 35%
• Email 2: 33%
• Email 3: 23%
• Email 4: 20%
• Email 5: 21%
• Email 8: 22%
• Email 13: 22%
• Email 15: 21%

But have you ever tried advertising on Facebook hoping to get a high ROI (Return On Investment) but you’ve always end up spending more money than what you earn? You’re not alone.

In fact, 99% of Facebook advertisers (including myself) have lost money on this and tons of it.

So, what’s the make it or break it thing? What makes a Facebook Ad a success or a failure?

It all comes down to 3 main key things that you have to do to get them right…

• RIGHT “Targeting” (expose your ad to the right group of potential buyers)
• RIGHT “Facebook Ad” (headline, image, ad copy)
• RIGHT “Landing Page” (offer, sense of urgency, etc.)

If any of the above lack, the only thing that pays is your pocket. With that said, let’s go ahead and show you some simple ways on how to make the most out of your Facebook campaigns so you can enjoy cheap clicks and maximum conversions.

Researching Tools to Find & Target Your EXACT Audience!

This is the hardest part of the whole Facebook Ads setup – most marketers don’t do enough research and they end up losing money. There’s something you can do to increase the chances for a successful ad campaign on Facebook and that’s to research your exact target audience before you set-up your campaign.

Your ad is more likely to perform better and continue running successfully if it is being displayed to the users who are most likely interested in what you have to offer.  Basically it goes like this:

Right Targeting = More Clicks and More Clicks = Cheaper Advertising

Translation: the better your targeting is,  the more clicks you get..and more clicks you get, the cheaper the clicks are!

So in the targeting option within the Facebook Ad Panel you’ll see many options. For example, you can target your audience by…

• Location (Countries where they live in)
• Age (their age group)
• Sex (their gender)
• Precise Interests (things and people they are interested in)
• Advanced Demographics (i.e. relationship status, education level, etc.)

Facebook Targeting Screenshot

Don’t be one of those people who just guesses and jumps right into setting up a campaign.  You’ll save yourself time and money by taking a few minutes to do it.

So how do you find more info about your market?

Well, there are several ways you can research your target audience.

Tip #1: Google Analytics

If you already own a website and are trying to promote it, this is a great place to start analyzing your existing website visitors. With Google Analytics, you can find valuable information about your audience such as countries, languages etc.

Tip #2: Google Ad Planner

Using Google Ad Planner you can find extremely valuable visitor demographics of ANY site! For instance, you enter your competitor’s website URL and you get to know their visitor demographics like age, gender, income, education — including audience interests — and use this data while targeting your Facebook Ad!  How cool is that?

Tip #3: YouTube Video Statistics

Have you ever noticed that small graph-looking icon in the right corner underneath a video you’re watching?  When you click on it, it gives you some great data about people who have watched the video — viewer age ranges, countries where people are watching the video, etc…

I usually find relevant videos depending on what I’m planning to promote on Facebook, and I analyze the target market by viewing its statistics. I also pay attention to how people communicate on these videos, what they need, what they like, what they don’t like and I use that while creating my ad copy to grab their attention.

Tip 4: Quantcast

Quantcast is a free online tool that provides details about a website’s audience.  My favorite bit of data is a breakdown and list of other sites people are likely to visit and this is GOLD when you’re using “Interest Targeting” on Facebook because you can learn more about the interests of people who go to that site.

That’s it for the researching and targeting part. In my next post I’ll show you some tips on how to create killer Facebook ad copy that will grab your audience’s attention by their eyeballs. Meanwhile please take a moment and let me know your feedback in the comments section below, I really like reading your comments.

Stay tuned!

Video by itself or with other copy?

If with copy, how much copy and what kind?

Do we delay the BUY button or show it right away?

What kind of video?  The kind with just sentences in which the narrator just reads along, or the kind with lots of graphics and stuff?

Video length?

These are just some of the things you can test.  However, if you have never used a video salesletter yet, don’t worry about this stuff yet.  First thing is just get one up and see how it does as compared to your long form salesletter.  A long form salesletter is your usual type of salesletter with all text that is very long with price at the bottom.

If you test out a video salesletter and it outperforms your long form salesletter, you can start tweaking and testing more with the stuff I mentioned above.  If you are having doubts about trying them out, you shouldn’t.  It really takes no time at all to whip out a decent video salespage.

If you have salescopy already, just follow these steps I have outlined below.  Once you have the copy, just make the video.  If you need help, just optin to this mailing list here where we give a few video tutorials on how to not only create the salescopy, but also how to make the video as well.  Some of the stuff in this post in repeated in the first video, but I got into alot more detail on the video series and I provide a bunch of live examples of stuff we’ve done.  Plus like I said you learn how to actually make the video as well.

With all that said, let me break down for you the 11 steps we go through when creating the copy for the video.  If you hate writing copy or never have before, you’ll be glad to know that in alot of ways writing copy for a video is much easier than for a long form salespage.  Just break it down into these steps:

Step 1:  The Introduction

This introduction needs to grab the attention of the view right away.  It has to say BOOM WATCH ME AND DON’T GO AWAY.  You need to engage them immediately to prevent them from closing out the page or clicking the BACK button.  You want to make sure you are going engaged enough to want to watch the whole video.

If your traffic is at least semi-targeted and your intro is even slightly compelling, you shouldn’t have any problems with this.  But this part is important!  A huge majority of people lose their viewers within the first 10 seconds.

It should demonstrate why they are there, and what they are going to get by watching the video.  And it needs to be different from anything else they might have watched before on the subject.  Get creative here!

Step 2:  State The Problem

Next up is the problem, and here you want to show the problem that the visitor is facing, as that is why they are there in the first place.  This one is generally pretty easy.  What problem is your product solving?  Remind them they have this problem, and that is why they are there watching the video in the first place.

Step 3:  Scarcity/Urgency For The Video

In this step, you want your viewer to feel like they must watch the video right now and and today, instead of coming back later to watch the video.  Lots of marketers do this by saying that the video won’t be up for long so they should watch it while it’s still available.  Of course, whenever I’ve seen this done the video remains up.  So how you communicate some sense of urgency is up to you.

Step 4:  State The Problem Again/Push Some “Hot-Buttons”

Discuss the problem some more and push their hot buttons.  You want to really get into the problem they are facing, and get into the dirt of it.  Let’s face it – if someone really does have a problem, and they are looking for your product to provide for them the solution – sometimes it takes brutal honestly to get someone to take some action.

And if your product really will help them, and you believe in your product and it’s ability to do so, then this needs to be done.  It’s called marketing!  You need to get to the point in this section of your content.  Really hit those emotional buttons that you know the prospect thinks about.

Step 5:  Introduce The Solution And Discuss Benefits

After hitting those hot buttons, it’s time to discuss the solution, which is your product.  It’s a good idea to show a picture or e-cover of the product here.  Get one made for 5 bucks over at fiverr if you want.  Give them the benefits of the product, and how it will change their situation and solve their problem.  Really get those benefits out there.

Step 6:  Talk About Features

After you throw out the benefits you can start talking about the product features, and again reinforce those benefits.  Talk about how these features will lead to certain benefits for them that will improve their situation.  Here is the difference between benefits and features…let’s say your product is a fitness program for men:

Feature:  10 little-known exercises for your chest

Benefit:  Builds your chest and chest muscles

And another:

Feature:  10 different easy-to-cook meals for breakfast

Benefit:  Lose fat from your belly

Step 7:  Testimonials And Social Proof

Next you want to get into testimonials and proof that your product will solve their problem.  Here you can show before and after pics, emails from people who have benefited from using your product, etc.  You really want to hit a home run with your proof that your product will solve their problem, don’t be shy with it.

For more info on social proof check out this article.  The author gives a nice definition and good information.

Step 8:  State The Guarantee

Now it’s time for you to get into your guarantee.  The guarantee serves to help relieve any doubt the visitor has about buying.  It gives them some reassurance that if they buy the product and don’t like it, they can get their money back.  It’s something that most people selling online do.

People are in general very skeptical when it comes to buying stuff online, so we want to eliminate the risk, and answer the question every potential buyer asks themselves, which is “What IF it doesn’t work?”

If you have a very good reputation and have alot of social proof, you might be able to get away with not giving a guarantee.  I know some marketers who are 100% upfront about what their product is and tells the audience EXACTLY what it does.  Their philosophy is if they visitor knows exactly what they are buying, they don’t need a guarantee.  Or if you are selling a service, it can be difficult to give a guarantee.

The choice of course is yours, unless you are bound to a guarantee if you sell your product on Clickbank for example.  They require you to give a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Step 9:  Give Bonus/Increase Value Of Offer

Your bonuses should be as valuable as possible and relate to your product.  Better yet, make your bonuses valuable enough to be it’s own product.  Remember, if you are in the “IM niche” you may think that bonuses are overdone, but the fact is that people love bonuses.  I get emailed all the time from people talking about bonuses we offer, or from people who cannot access the bonuses.  They work. Try different ones, see what kind of response you get.  Experiment and test with them as necessary.

And remember…don’t just add any bonuses to increase the offer.  Make sure they are directly related to your product.

Step 10:  Scarcity/Urgency

Next you should get into the scarcity of the product, if any.  For example if you are going to sell only 500 units, make that clear.  If you are selling a coaching program and can only handle 50 clients, make that perfectly clear.  If you don’t have any limits on the product, put a time limit on the current offer with a price increase when it expires.  This does a great job to create urgency.

Step 11:  Present The Call To Action (And Make Those Monies!)

Finally, it’s time for the call to action.  This is where most often times if you are delaying showing your buy button, you will present the buy button next to or in most cases right below the video.

And that’s it!

I mentioned some questions at the beginning of this post, questions that we are still always answering.  I just wanted to mention them again briefly, and give you our “answer” as to what is working well now.  It’s always changing, and it really depends on the niche/offer/100 other factors, but this is what we are doing now:

Video by itself or with other copy? 

We are putting additional copy with the video in most cases.  Not a huge, long salesletter by any means.  Most of it is benefits and testimonials.

If with copy, how much copy and what kind?

Like I said, most of the additional copy is some benefits and a few testimonials.  Maybe an FAQ section.  Maybe the bonuses and guarantee mentioned as well.

Do we delay the BUY button or show it right away?

We do both really.  This one is tough, and really depends on the product and niche.

What kind of video?  The kind with just sentences in which the narrator just reads along, or the kind with lots of graphics and stuff?

Again, we do both.  But more of our videos are JUST sentences with the narrator reading along.

Video length?

Most of our videos are about 15-20 minutes in length.

So, there you go.  Easy right?  Just take it a step at a time.  And as I mentioned in the beginning of the post, to get more detailed information on this as well as steps on actually making the video as well, just optin here and we’ll send you the videos.

Question?  Comments?  Throw ‘em down!

Do you use video salesletter yet?  What’s keeping you from using them?  Let me know!

I recently ran a promo for some of our products because it was John’s birthday.  We usually run a promo to our list(s) once every 8-12 weeks or so.  Honestly, I’m not sure if I do it enough or if I do it too much.  Part of me thinks that I don’t do it enough, but I’m afraid if we run promo’s too much they won’t be as effective.

What I’m going to do here is show you some of the elements of the sales page we used, and how we marketed the promo overall.

I’m sure it could be done better, and if anyone has any tips for me please feel to let me know in the comments section.  But here is what I did, and as far I’m concerned it was quite successful.  I’m not going to throw out dollar numbers at you, but let’s just say the promo ran into the four figure range in the first day alone and overall it lasted almost 3 days.  (And then again for short time a week later, keep reading to find out why).

The email I sent out got a decent open rate, just over 15%.   However, from the people that opened it, 90% clicked thru.  Yes, that is correct, and I could hardly believe it myself.  It was BY FAR the best open rate I’ve ever had, on any list, ever.  Here a screen shot of the email I sent:

I’m sure the open rate was mostly due to me sending the offer as a gift.  And secondly, I tried to convey a feeling of happiness, excitement, and friendliness.  I think it worked pretty well.

Now about the offer…

Point #1 – We gave a HUGE discount.

These 5 products if purchased alone would cost over $400.  We were offering them for $77

Point #2 – Sales page was rather short, with lots of product benefits.

I didn’t want to make things complicated.  The people on our list know our products.  They just haven’t been “convinced” to buy yet.  Here is what the top of the page looked like:

And here is the second part of the page, where I put in some more benefits of the product:

Point # 3 -  Added some urgency

The window to buy was short. And it was real.  I didn’t use false urgency or false scarcity or whatever, I used our Page Expiration Robot plugin for this.  They had 2 days to buy.  If they waited, they were out.  Here’s a screenshot of it:

Point # 4 – Captured list of hot leads

If they got to the page after the 2 days expired, they got to a page that told them it was too late.  However, there was an optin form on the page so that they could optin if they want to be notified right away if they sale happened again.  These leads are super hot!  Here is what the “time is up” page looked like.  Very simple, took me 5 minutes to create the page and add the Aweber form.

And here is the second part of the page.  Real simple stuff:

This list promotion took me me about 2 hours to put together in total.  The vast majority of it was spent on the salespage.  Overall a pretty quick job.  Never underestimate the power of a promo sale to your list.  If you are offering good value, add some urgency, stress those benefits of the product, and give a great price you simply can’t go wrong!

A week after the promotion ended, I sent out an email to the list of hot leads.  From the people that opened the email, 19% purchased.  Sweeeeeeeet!!!

If you have any comments on this process or something you do similar or different, let me know!  Love to hear it.

Q1: Did you ever see a one-time offer telling you: “You’ll Never See This Offer Again!”, then you bookmarked it and went back later to see if it was still there, and sure enough it was?!

How much trust did you have in that marketer on his next “special offer” or “one-time offer”? What about his credibility? Well, you don’t want your visitors feeling the same about you.

Q2: Do you want to run time-limited or one-time offers in a perpetual model?

For example, setup a page in a way to show your offer to visitor A once (or for a limited time only). If he tries to exit and return back the offer will no longer available for him, and automatically redirect him to another offer. And at the same time, visitor B will go through that same exact process.

Q3: Do you want to find ways to increase your conversions with your current traffic by creating a REAL sense of URGENCY inside your visitor’s minds?

Now you’re probably thinking, “So what? I can go back and expire the page manually, and set the redirection to a new URL.”.

Well not really!… if you want every single visitor to go through the same exact REAL one-time offer or limited time offer, that’s impossible to do manually.

Q4: Did you know that according to New ClickBank’s Vendor Guidelines you can get your clickbank account suspended for false scarcity? DANGEROUS

That’s why we created it!

Page Expiration Robot is a free sales-boosting WP plugin that allows you to easily setup one time offers or limited-time offers and schedule pages (and posts) to expire when you want — then redirect those visitors to a different URL – either with higher price or even waiting list!

We ourselves wanted an easy way to make REAL one-time offers and limited-time offers easily and quickly. We use it ourselves and make alot of money with it. You can too. And best of all, it’s free to use.

Here Are Just Some of The Amazing Features…

Check the video below to see how it works. If you like it, you can download the free version here. It can really help you create REAL scarcity in your offers and REAL one-time offers as well.

Here’s How Page Expiration Robot Works:

As you can see, Page Expiration Robot’s philosophy is based on “Scarcity”. In case you don’t know what scarcity is, it’s a marketing and sales technique that gets people to take action right now by telling them that if they don’t, they will never have the same opportunity again. You see it everywhere, and you definitely saw it way before you got into Internet Marketing.

Remember when you were a kid watching those late night infomercials?

“Call Within The Next Three Minutes And You’ll Qualify For A Free Gift! But Be Sure To Call Within The Next Three Minutes Because Supplies Will Not Last!”

Or maybe you went in to buy a new car, and the salesman told you that that there is only one car left on the lot of that car you are looking to buy, and that someone else is coming later to look at the same car.

Makes you kind of want to buy it right then and there right? I mean you don’t want to miss out on the car you want!

In the online world you see it all the time. For example, a product will go up in price after a certain amount of time or after a certain amount have been sold.  But does this really happen?

I mean, if you go back in a month, does the salespage still say the same stuff? Normally it does. And do you trust this marketer now? Probably not.

Gaining the trust of your visitors and customers is important, not only for new customers but to keep customers coming back to you over and over again…

And that’s why you need Page Expiration Robot WP plugin!

How You Can Use It To Increase Sales!

Here we created a quick inspirational list of possible scenarios on how you can use Page Expiration Robot and make the most out of it.

 Conversion-Boosting Idea #1:

• Cold lead.  Set Offer for $17, set to expire in 10 minutes, and redirect to 2nd offer
• 2nd offer for 27, set to expire in 5 minutes, and redirect to a 3rd offer
• 3rd offer for 37, set to expire in 3 minutes, and redirect to a 4th offer
• 4th offer for 47, set to expire in 2 minutes, and redirect to a squeeze page
• By opting in, they will know when there is the same offer for $17 again

Conversion-Boosting Idea #2:

• Cold lead.  Set offer for $97, set to expire in 10 minutes, and redirect to a 2nd offer
• 2nd offer is for $147, set to expire in 2 minutes, and redirect to a squeeze page
• By opting in, they will know when there is the same offer for $97 again

The possibilities are endless!

Click Here To Download It

I’d appreciate if you leave me your feedback and thoughts in the comment section below! Enjoy:)

1.  Get Traffic
2.  Capture leads by getting email addresses from traffic
3.  Email leads valuable and useful information
4.  Include in the email offers for a product

Step 1 is certainly one of the most challenging parts of internet marketing.  However, even if you are getting less than 100 visitors per day to your website, you should absolutely still be trying to capture leads from that traffic.  Don’t worry about starting small!  The important this is that you are starting.

So, how do you capture the lead?  The answer is a lead magnet…in one way or another on your site, you advertise something in exchange for the visitor’s name and email, or even just their email.  And what you are advertising in exchange for the email address is the lead magnet.  But you don’t advertise just anything!  A very strong lead magnet will not only increase your subscriber rate, but also start off your relationship with that subscriber very well.  

A lead magnet should be thought of as a product in itself.  It should be something that you could see yourself charging money for normally.  It would be considered valuable if it helps solve some sort of problem for the subscriber.

Normally, that’s why they are on your site in the first place right?  They have a problem, they want a solution, and they are looking for an authority to filter all of the information on the interwebz and tell them what would best help them.

A lead magnet should also relate to the website.  This may sound obvious, but I see alot of people getting this part a bit wrong.  What is your marketing message?  What is your audience looking for specifically?  What problem are you trying to solve?  Your lead magnet should address all of these questions.

Make sure it’s not boring!  Remember, you are a marketer.  No matter how valuable your lead magnet really is, you have to think like a marketer when you create it.  If your lead magnet is in the weight loss niche and is a nutritional plan, don’t call it “Nutritional Plan For Weight Loss”.  Call it “Nutrition Gone Wild:  6 Easy Plans For Losing A Crazy Amount of Fat”.  OK that example is a little funky but you get the picture.

Also, your lead magnet should always deliver on what it promises.  Trust is a huge factor in how responsive the subscriber is to your emails and how likely the are to buy from you.  If you don’t actually do what you said you are going to do in the very first email, you can kiss that trust goodbye.

So to recap on what makes a good lead magnet:

1)  It should be valuable, as in considered a product in itself
2)  It should help solve a problem
3)  It needs to be highly related to your site and marketing message
4)  The name should be spicy
5)  It needs to deliver on it’s promise

Types of Lead Magnets

You will find alot of people, specifically in the internet marketing niche, offer free PDF reports.  However this is not the only thing out there.  Others include:

- A video or video series
- An interview with an expert in the field
- A piece of software or access to an application
- A blueprint of some sort that gives a solution
- Ebook

Check out Articulate Presenter for turning Powerpoint presentations and videos into Flash based presentations.  We have created a ton of lead magnets as well as products using Articulate Presenter.  It has a 30-day trial too.  Using this product will absolutely skyrocket the perceived value of the lead magnet.  If you have a 3 videos you want to use, you can turn those videos into a presentation with this software and add all sorts of cool stuff.

One example of a lead magnet we use is this wordpress plugin we created.  I’m not going to get into all the features here, but basically it helps you create urgency in your online offers, one-time offers, and special offers.  Here is how it addresses the lead magnet questions above:

1)  It should be valuable, as in considered a product in itself

Definitely.  And it’s not only John and I that think so!  We have been getting lots of messages from people telling us how much they enjoy the plugin.  That’s certainly a good sign.

2)  It should help solve a problem

Yes, it solves the problem people have with creating urgency in their offers.

3)  It needs to be highly related to your site and marketing message

Most if not all marketers try to apply urgency into their offers.

4)  The name should be spicy

Page Expiration Robot is the name.  OK not the spiciest name in the world, but this gives you the idea that there is some automation in it’s features as well as try to explain what it does.  There certainly is automation in a way, as you don’t have to manually expire pages and posts when you give limited time offers.

5)  It needs to deliver on it’s promise

It works perfectly, and is constantly being updated and improved.

Another lead magnet you can take a look at as an example is our video training series on how to create your own sales video as well as video salesletter.  This also addresses each of the points above.

And last but not least, here is a squeeze page we use as an exit page from one of our products in the beauty niche.  This is an example of using Articulate Presenter.  We took 9 videos and combined them into a video presentation.

Do you have trouble with lead magnets?  Or do you find them easy to create?  What kind of lead magnets do you personally like to see offered when you subscribe to a list?  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Bill

Guarantee Example Preview #1:

• Word Script Download
• Credits to Jason Fladlien from Internet Marketing Profit Equation

Guarantee Example Preview #2:

• Word Script Download
• Credits to Jason Fladlien from http://www.3HourAd.com