Better Results Using Both Newsletters and Follow Ups
Email Marketing - Marc Kline - January 29th, 2008 - PermalinkAround the web and in conversation with ambitious new email marketers, we often hear of our company cited as either an “autoresponder” or an “email newsletter” service.
You say “toe-may-toh” I say “toe-mah-toh”, right?
Well, we often describe our service as a “permission only email marketing solution”, because autoresponders and newsletters are only two of the many features we offer. With that said, we’re not overly concerned about how our service is referred to.
What we are concerned about is how this limited perception sometimes holds back many new and even some experienced email marketers from reaching their campaigns’ potential.
Starting on the Right Foot …
With an understanding of some of the benefits of email marketing, new customers often join us with a single, very focused goal. Often it is something like:
These are great ideas, and they describe perfect applications of both our broadcast feature (for newsletters) and follow up feature (for a series of messages) for helping a business to grow.
The problem is, once these ideas reach fruition and some success is evident, too many marketers stop there.
What Else Would They Do?
Whether an email campaign has series of follow ups with no broadcast messages — or vice versa — it is missing a critical piece for optimal success.
A while back, Justin published an article discussing why email newsletter publishers need autoresponders, meant to motivate senders who focus solely on newsletters (broadcasts) to also schedule a few follow up messages.
A new article in our Knowledge Base takes a slightly different approach, explaining why all email marketers should use both follow up and messages:
Only Using One or the Other?
If you’re sending only follow up or broadcast messages and not both, don’t fret. Today you can use this opportunity to do something quite simple that will boost your results.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment response, trackback from your own site, or permalink.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
There are many things that we (internet marketers) can do without, and still be able to run our businesses. We don’t need a website for example as these days it is perfectly feasable to run a web business via a free blog.
When people ask me about aweber/autoresponders/email systems, my answer is always the same, the service you provide is the engine/motor of the business. It is the motive force and the email addresses we collect (via permission only systems) are the fuel.
Thankyou for making all this possible.
January 29th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Great discussion about your service. Most of the time affiliate marketers should be using the follow up series to promote products instead of the broadcasts.
This way, EVERY subscriber they ever see will see those messages.
The broadcasts should be used for time-sensitive information. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to put my Halftime Sale promotions in an autoresponder, since it won’t active after Sunday’s "big game."
At the same time, promoting a product that never goes away should be shared in an autoresponder instead of a one time broadcast.
I also suggest that Aweber users get into the habit of adding at least one follow up message to their lists every week. There’s no reason why you can’t have 150 messages or more in one autoresponder.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
On the idea of how to vary follow-up, I’m using an "offline autoresponder" called SendOutCards so I need not just names and emails, but also mailing addresses.
I’ve set up my own methods in the past, but do you have any proforma way to collect those details into aweber eg suggestions on standard categories to use, templates, drop-down boxes etc?
January 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Martin,
You can include up to 25 custom input boxes with your sign up forms.
Check out the Knowledge Base article we’ve published explaining how to add custom fields.
Once you’ve added the fields to your form, you’ll see options to select whether you’d like to use drop-downs, radio buttons, checkboxes, etc.
February 1st, 2008 at 2:36 am
This is brilliant. I am a HUGE Aweber fan - and love how you’re continuously showing us (your subcribers) not only to use your services more effectively but grow our businesses.
I’ve been marketing a customized 1-on-1 program lately in my newsletter lately, and you’ve reminded me how important it is to follow up with specific and timely messages related to it.
You rock - thanks again!
February 4th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
When someone subscribes to my site, they automatically receive soy-free recipes that are not in the book.
I don’t send out follow-ups every week. I don’t want to annoy them. I do send broadcast emails when I have new information that my database would be interested in, or when someone has made a new post to my blog.
I do send emails for every holiday.
When my book is released, I’ll be able to send more emails with my calendar of dates as to where I will be regarding TV & Radio interviews, book signings, etc..
February 7th, 2008 at 9:50 am
[…] If you aren’t sending a continuous campaign of emails using the feature available to you, there certainly may be messages you should be sending to subscribers that you aren’t. So, we just recently posted on why email marketers nearly always should use both follow ups and newsletters for their campaigns. […]
April 12th, 2008 at 6:54 am
I send out a quarterly newsletter to a list of subscibers and I find that it is a great way or marketing a product. I get a lot of readers of the newsletter clicking onto my website for further details.