In the past, I’ve been a fan of AWeber. They are one of the premiere email marketing platforms. If you’re looking to step up your game, however, they may no longer be the best choice for you.
The good news is you can still use AWeber lists to grow your email list and send out amazing email campaigns. The bad news is you have to do a bit more work than usual.
Lists are a major component of every campaign. Whether you’re utilizing solo ads, display ads, or text ads, having a good list is essential to your strategy. AWeber lists allow you to segment your prospects and target specific demographics. You can also gain a lot of insight into what is and isn’t working with your campaign.
Once you have your list, you can use various tactics to get them to interact with you. The better they interact with you, the more you’ll grow your list.
Create A Good List
AWeber lists are built upon a solid foundation of quality leads. To get started, you must have a good source of quality leads. The better your source, the better your list will be. The key is to establish a good relationship with your source. When they know you’re providing good value, they’ll happily share your contact information with you.
To build your list, you must first determine how you’ll acquire the information required to do so. You can use a combination of methods, but ultimately, you must use a lead capture form of some kind. Ideally, you’ll want to use a combination of methods, incorporating your own website, social media, and email marketing to multiply your chances of gaining good quality leads.
Make Sure You ‘Unsubscribe’ Or ‘Opt-Out’
Once you have a good list, you need to make sure that you’ve eliminated all the bad leads. To do this, you must have an opt-out or unsubscribe form on your website, whether it is a static page or a form contained within a content area. You should also have a similar form on your social media accounts. Make sure that your opt-out or unsubscribe form is clear and simple to understand.
This way, when someone decides they don’t want to receive marketing emails from you any longer, they can easily unsubscribe or opt-out. If you forget to implement an unsubscribe or opt-out mechanism, you’ll have a hard time getting rid of people on your list who decide they want to continue receiving your emails (also known as ‘double opt-in’).
Segment Your Lists
Once you have your good list, you can begin to segment it. There are numerous ways to do this, so find the one that makes the most sense for your situation. For example, you might want to create a buyer persona and put aside certain leads based on their characteristics.
This way, you’ll be able to tailor your email content to be more relevant to your target audience. You can further segment your lists based on demographics, such as gender, age, or location. If you have large lists and want to perform some A/B testing, you can further segment them based on the previous variable. For example, you can compare the open rates and click-through rates of a display ad campaign when segmented by gender, with the original un-segmented list.
Automate Your Email Deliveries
One of the most basic and effective techniques for growing your list is to simply automate your email deliveries. The more you can automate, the better. If you use a marketing automation platform like HubSpot, you can have email campaigns scheduled to go out on a regular basis. This can be a great way to ensure your list always has new content to read, regardless of whether you send out a new email campaign every two weeks or every month.
Use ‘Soft’ Clicks & ‘Hard’ Clicks
When someone clicks on an email link or downloads an attachment, they’re considered ‘hard’ clicks. The key is to focus on both kinds of clicks, not just hard ones. For example, you might want to try a series of emails with a download link for a free e-book, followed by a series of emails with a simple click-through link for a discount on your product. You can do this by simply duplicating your list, segmenting it based on whether the person who signed up for your list opted in or not (hard click) or whether they downloaded a file (soft click).
The key is to make sure that, even when someone clicks on a link or downloads an attachment, you’re still collecting their email address so that you can continue to market to them. If you don’t have the sign-up form on your website or blog, you can have a field on an opt-in form that asks for their email address. It’s also a good idea to get affiliates to promote your offer, gathering new email addresses when they sign up for your affiliate program. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Use Reply-to-All & Priority Mail
Another great way to segment your lists is to use reply-to-all and priority mail. In general, whenever you’re sending an email, you have the option of replying to only that person, to the whole list, or not at all (leave the message for next week).
Choose to reply to all when communicating with customers, and you’ll make sure that everyone who signed up for your list gets the message. While this might seem like a simple and obvious step, you’d be surprised by how many emails get sent out without reply-to-all.
Using priority mail on your envelopes not only provides your customers with a greater sense of importance, but it also makes you stand out among other marketers. When others see your priority mail, they’ll know you took the time to find a creative and unique way to get your message out. This could result in more clicks on your links, more purchases through your affiliate program, or simply more compliments on your campaigns.
Track The Results Of Your Efforts
In every area of business, nothing can replace good old-fashioned tracking and measuring. The same goes for email marketing. You can monitor the results of your efforts with a variety of tactics, from open rates and click-through rates to acquisition and retention. Don’t just look at the number of leads that you have at this point, but also look at how many of those leads are viable. How effective is your email marketing? Use metrics like these to determine what’s working and what isn’t.
Use This Template To Get Started
If you’re looking to take your email marketing to the next level, it’s time to get started. The key is to use a proven and tested marketing template that can be tweaked to fit your audience and situation. AWeber lists are a great place to start, as they provide you with everything you need to get started, including the ability to send out automated campaigns and the ability to track the results of your efforts. If you decide that AWeber isn’t the best fit for you, you can easily replace it with another platform that offers similar features.