Email marketing is far from dead.
In fact, even if you exclude SPAM, email outnumbers Facebook posts, Twitter messages, etc… by a factor of four.
Email is the most-used, highly valued media form by marketers. Also, you’ve no doubt heard “the money is in the relationship you build with your list.”
Well email lists, and the relationship you build with the people on your email lists are where the money is when it comes to marketing online…and it will probably stay that way.
But you may not be getting the clicks out of your emails you need, or generating the income you would like from your email marketing efforts. If that’s the case, were going to cover 5 ways you can improve both right now…then I’m going to share access to 40 more ways you can improve both at the end of this article.
Let’s get to the 5 proven ways you can improve clicks and income from your email right now…
#1 – Track It
It’s important to use tracking for an email list.
Specifically you should measure:
- Open rates
- Click-thru rates
- Product purchases
- Daily subscriber numbers
With an email service provider such as Aweber, there is a lot more you can track. The important thing is to focus and track at least these four items.
You might wonder how to track affiliate sales. This can be done through most affiliate programs and networks.
For instance, Clickbank has Tracking ID (TID) feature. This is a piece of code you can include with every link.
Here’s what this looks like:
And here’s how your raw affiliate link will appear:
Also, I use a lot of broadcasts messages. And I found it was hard to track affiliate campaigns based on a code. So what I’m just starting to use is a special sequence that’s based on a date.
As an example, if I sent an email out today (October 27th, 2011) for my primary affiliate account, it would look like this:
1z102711
- The ‘1’ is the identifier for my affiliate account (I have four.)
- The ‘z’ is a way to break up the number sequence. And z is a letter that’s rarely used.
- And the ‘102711’ is the date – October 27th 2011
Why should you go this specific with dates and identifiers?
I use a publishing schedule to track all my messages (and you should too).
SIDENOTE: I cover the use of a publishing schedule further in my digital guide Email Marketing Mastery – 45 Ways To Take Your Email Marketing To The Next Level, which I offer below.
Moving on…This identifier works great for those products that have recurring revenue.
Believe me, it’s nice to look at a commission months after an email has been sent and know the exact email that produced this income:
Tracking each affiliate link is super important. It’s the only way to know what actually works with your marketing…so you can do more of what works.
And to help you find out what works better and what doesn’t…
#2 – Split Test It
You want to consistently work on your open rates. The more people opening your messages mean more money in your pocket.
Here’s an example…
Email #1 has an open rate of 20% and it generates $1000.
What if you bumped up the open rate to 30%?
That means you’ve just increase profitability by $500!
Split-testing can make this happen. Every email should be split into half and then you test one factor. Here’s how this looks in Aweber: 
What should you split-test?
Here a few ideas:
- The subject line
- The day the message is sent
- The time on same the date
- Long copy vs. short copy (to see if your messages trip spam filters.)
- Styles of content (Aggressive vs. Soft Sell)
No matter what – ALWAYS split test your broadcast messages.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot…
Without getting too “technical,” a lot of free email companies (Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail) have really cracked down on marketers. So it’s getting harder and harder to avoid the dreaded SPAM label.
One of the factors they look for is the quantity of emails you’re sending. This is bad news for anyone with a large list. So another way split-testing helps is you can cut each group of messages you’re sending in half.
Sending two smaller batches of email instead of one huge batch is a great way to slip under the radar of over-aggressive SPAM filters.
The next tip is one of those that unfortunately, most marketers are too lazy to implement…yet can produce a nice increase in profits.
#3 – Segment (Sub list) It
Ultimately you want to create sub lists for your email campaigns. What is sub listing? It’s when you take an email address for one list and automatically place it into a more targeted list.
Here’s an example…
Let’s say a list of people who have signed up for your “fitness” newsletter. They’re not proven buyers. All they are is a list of freebie seekers who have a variety of interests:
- Home fitness workouts
- Build muscle
- Lose weight
These are people are all over the map when it comes to what they want.
Now let’s say you have an information product on developing six-pack abs. You charge money for it. So a lot of people on your “fitness” newsletter won’t join your customer list.
So it makes no sense to have these groups of people on the same list. Instead you would sub list them into two categories:
- Free “fitness newsletter” subscribers
- Customers of the six-pack abs product
Whenever someone buys a product, they’re automatically removed from the workout newsletter and added to the six-pack abs customer list.
This can easily be done in the Aweber system:
- First you’d locate the main list (where you want people to unsubscribe from)
- Then you’ll go to My Lists –>Automation (See image below.)
Then you’ll find this automation rule:
Unsubscribe from list [list name] when subscriber subscribes to [new list name]
Here’s how I do this for my customers of Affiliate Marketing without the Bulls**t: 
Why would anyone want to sub list (or segment email lists)?
The lists you end up building will contain people who are specifically interested in a particular topic…or demonstrate a particular pattern.
Even better – It builds a list of proven buyers.
These people will be very responsive to every future offer you make. Done correctly, you can add of lot of additional income by marketing to these individuals.
Think of it this way… You know they like a particular topic and you know they’re willing to spend money. Wouldn’t it make sense to send them more offers?
Ultimately your goal is to have multiple products and multiple offers. This makes it easier to sell to these people and get more people to take action.
#4 – Know When To Send It
When you send an email affects your open rates and sales. That’s why it’s important to find that perfect sweet spot for the date and time.
The first way to get this information is to use split-testing (like we discussed above). Instead of writing different headlines, you’d send the same message at different times or days. Then measure which day/time got the best response.
Split-test enough messages and you’ll see a pattern for when your messages get opened.
Another trick is to use this website to gather some “intel” about your audience –> http://stats.grok.se/
This is a tool that searches Wikipedia and tells you the number of times a particular topic was searched for each day. For instance, if I entered P90X (a popular fitness product), I’d get this:
From this data, I’d see that the highest search volume days for October 2011 were the following:
- Monday the 3th
- Wednesday the 5th
- Monday the 17th
- Tuesday the 18th
- Wednesday the 19th
I now know that the best days to send an email about this topic would be Monday through Wednesday. Obviously, you’d want to do a few more searches. But I think you get the idea.
This information is important because it gives you the best days (and times) when people will be most interested in searching for information in your particular niche. This one action will increase your open and click-through rates.
Now it’s time to share a “sneaky” trick that almost no one does…
#5 – RSS It? (Yep, RSS It…)
Here’s a nifty way to get more traffic to an email list. Inside every email marketing program you have the ability to create an RSS feed.
For instance, in every broadcast message you prepare in Aweber, you’ll find a box to Enable Sharing/Social Media.
This lists your RSS feed: 
An RSS feed allows your content to be spread across other directories and blogs.
Submitting this to multiple directories creates additional traffic to your email website…and therefore adds more subscribers to your list, increasing clicks and income.
This is a sneaky way to pick up additional email subscribers…especially if you’re publishing great content!
You can get started with the 68 Aggregators & Directories List. (but don’t leave this page yet, because you can access 40 more proven email marketing tricks below…)
Want Instant Access To 40 More Proven Ways To Increase Clicks And Income From Your Email Marketing?
Introducing: Email Marketing Mastery
What started as the simple article above ended up becoming a 47 page digital guide where I spilled the best 45 secrets about email marketing I’ve used to build my own business online.
And now, you can have them for a small investment.
Basically, you can consider these 45 “insider shortcuts” to email marketing success from someone who is actually practicing them today (right now in fact). This means you’re not getting outdated, useless information that won’t work…these email marketing strategies are working right now in my own business.
So what would 47 pages of current, relevant, and proven email marketing strategies be worth? Well, at just $1 a page…$47.00.
But you’re not going to invest anything close to that. I want you to have no excuses to start using these proven email marketing strategies right away… so I’m offering the complete 47 page Email Marketing Mastery digital guide (PDF format) for only:
$5.00!
Your order is process 100% securely online. You will receive instant access to Email Marketing Mastery upon completion of your payment.
And your purchase is backed by my…
100% 60 Day Money Back Guarantee:
Your purchase is totally risk-free, if at any time you don’t feel completely satisfied with your purchase of Email Marketing Mastery, simply contact me (instructions are provided in the guide) and I will refund your full $5.00 purchase price ASAP.
Fair enough?
Now if you know me from reading my blog or by emailing me, you know I’m not going to pull some B.S. like “for a limited time” or “only 500 copies sold”… but I am going to say one thing…
Why wait on getting a jump start to email marketing success?
If you’re asking the question “Steve, how do you fix a low response to your emails?” this guide is my complete answer. Also, 47 pages is a pretty easy read so you can get started quickly, and I link to some valuable resources inside…
…so go ahead and click the order button and gain immediate access to Email Marketing Mastery right now:
Your order is process 100% securely online. You will receive instant access to Email Marketing Mastery upon completion of your payment.
Remember, your purchase is entirely risk-free, and the information packed inside this guide is sure to provide you a shortcut to email marketing success (45 shortcuts to be exact).
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Email Marketer and
Founder of SteveScottSite.com
P.S. Look, at $5.00 this guide is a steal, if you discover only one email strategy that converts more clicks or generates more income for you…isn’t it worth it (there are 45 in the guide)? And your purchase is 100% risk-free…so why wait?
Your order is process 100% securely online. You will receive instant access to Email Marketing Mastery upon completion of your payment.