Obviously, you want to take care of and serve your subscribers. However, you also need to take care of and serve YOU and YOUR Business. Because if you don’t, you won’t be in business and then you won’t be serving anyone. Right?
So, how do you do that?
Well, that is what we are going to focus on today. We’re going to go through your list again, I know… I know… Not AGAIN! But this time we will be making sure these emails also serve you and help you make money. Don’t worry, you won’t have to rewrite them!
Remember yesterday how we were focusing on taking care of your audience and only providing offers that add value for them? (So you ensure long-term growth.) Well, the best way to take care of your subscribers while also taking care of you is to get more people to look at those quality offers and take you up on them! Then you have an ongoing Win / Win! More people get the value from your offers and you get the benefit of additional income!
O.K. So How Do You Do THAT?
Your best friend for this is the analytics data from your auto-responder service and by paying attention to other actions you can measure like click through on links etc. You may even want to dig around Google Analytics and see what helpful data you can find there. Use the data to show you where you are losing people in your autoresponder sequence.
Start Tracking These Three Metrics
To get you started, it helps to track three different metrics. (I know… Math, Metrics, Measuring… Oh My!) This is easier than it sounds and can become fun once you see how it can help you grow your business.
So, the first metric to look at is, of course, the open rate. If your subscribers don’t even bother to open your emails, you need to do something. Start by looking at the subject line and see what you can do to improve it. If that doesn’t work, it may be a problem with the subject matter. In that case, I suggest replacing the message with something different.
SECRET TIP – It might also have nothing to do with your message and everything to do with spam filters and your email reputation and if your email address is authenticated properly. I have some free training calls on this tip inside my free tech Tuesday training library.
The second metric you want to keep an eye on is the
So, go back to what you’ve learned about your ideal subscriber. What interests them? What do they need to solve their problems? If you are not sure, it might be a great time to send out a survey or ask them to help you by replying with some feedback. Then write the new or updated offers and content with them in mind. Just keep going back to the questions of what they need to know and what they need next that we talked about yesterday. I know it can be boring and it can also be hard! That’s OK and that is normal! Keep going. You’ve got this!
The third basic metric you want to take a look at is your unsubscribes. Oh, that dreaded word! I remember in the beginning, being so afraid of having my readers unsubscribe, that I wouldn’t email them. Of course, then when I finally did, they had forgotten who I was and did unsubscribe. DUH! I would have been better off emailing them all along.
So, don’t worry. I’m not suggesting that you panic and delete messages anytime you see someone unsubscribe. Unsubscribes are normal. There will always be some unsubscribes with every email you send. That is normal and actually a good thing.
Instead I want you to look at the big picture and to look at unsubscribes from a different perspective. You will always have some people unsubscribe from your list at various points in the message sequence. What you want to look for is spikes in unsubscribes at a particular message. Look at those emails. Is the topic different from what you usually share? Did you try to sell your readers too hard on a product you love? If so, then update those messages, toning down the copy, or even replacing it with something that’s better suited (either product or content) to your target audience and see if you can improve those stats.
SECRET TIP – Shift your perspective on unsubscribes and don’t take it personally! There are many reasons people unsubscribe, perhaps something has changed in their life (that has nothing to do with your work or your message) and your emails just aren’t a fit for them anymore. That is OK. From your heart, thank them for unsubscribing and saving you money (on your monthly list subscription) and for improving your open rates and email reputation (because the more subscribers you have on your list who don’t open anything the lower your open rate percentage is and the lower your sending reputation.)
There’s a lot you can learn from your stats and from what your readers tell you. Start to pay attention more, start to listen more, and start to take action going forward. You’ll find yourself becoming a better and better email marketer as time goes by. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s really about