This post was written by Josh Krafchin of CleverZebo.

It ain’t easy being a growing business who wants to split (A/B) test.

It’s so important to do – it’s how you find out what offers and approaches your audience responds to.

But there’s so little time to learn how. So we tried to answer all the basic questions right here so you can get your answers all at once.

(Incidentally, here’s how to test in AWeber.)

To Get The Most Results, What Should I Test?

When in doubt, start simple. Testing the basics will help you determine the main elements of your campaign. Later, you can keep those elements in place while you tweak the details.

Test Idea #1

If you want to test your email newsletter, try testing plain-text vs more heavily designed HTML emails.

Plain-text email open and click-through rates often rival those of their fancier, graphically designed brethren. If you’d rather a more designed look, templates are available.

Depending on your audience, you may get better response with message-from-Mom-type plain text, or they might prefer a more colorful or visual design.

Once you test it, you’ll know which approach to take.

Test Idea #2

For another testing option, rather than break up a free trial registration into multiple steps, why not test including it all on one page?

You could find that your registrants are less likely to abandon the form after finding they have to fill out a second or third page.

On the other hand, you could find that seeing a fuller one-step form could deter people from even starting to fill it out.

Test Idea #3

Have a product whose image sells itself? Feature it on your sign up form!

Recent studies show that people respond far more to images than text, so any image is going to draw their eyes to your form.

The question is, which image will best encourage subscriptions?

Check out this beautiful (because of its simplicity) landing page:

How Can I Test Despite Low Traffic On My Site?

Probably the biggest factor in determining the scope of a test is traffic volume (followed closely by traffic quality). Without traffic, there’s little to test.

The good news is, even if you have even a small amount of traffic, you can start testing to see what engages those site visitors the most.

Testing For Low Traffic (Fewer Than 10 Daily Visits) And Minimal Analytics History

The absolute first priority, before you start testing, create one best-shot landing page to start with.

Focus all your energy on expressing your value proposition succinctly, creating a powerful call to action, listing convincing benefits and explaining how your product or service delivers those benefits.

Testing is useful for optimization, but unreliable for guidance through the basics of around how to sell. Before you worry about testing, create the best-looking, best-written, most compelling landing page you’re capable of and start there.

After you’ve launched that landing page (or if you already have) let the analytics for that page – reports on how much response you get from each part of the page – guide your next move.

If there’s a part of your page that’s getting clicked on less than you think it should (especially in comparison with other parts of the page), start there.

If I Have More Traffic, What Should I Test?

Testing For Moderate Traffic (100+ Daily Visits Or At Least 3,000 Past Visits)

If your analytics are showing high engagement and conversion rates, go to the next section. Otherwise, it’s back to the drawing board.

You may have a deeper issue than messaging or design. Start your creative process over.

Perhaps it’s a conversion funnel problem (Offer a free trial? Give away a free resource in exchange for contact info?)

Perhaps you were speaking to the wrong audience and need to re-imagine the concept altogether.

Regardless, don’t worry about small changes at this point – go for the whole enchilada. You need to find an approach that converts and a small change like a different button color probably won’t do it.

Testing For Heavy Traffic (Thousands Of Daily Visits)

If your landing page is converting poorly, see the previous section. Otherwise, since your site is bringing in traffic, we’ll assume your basic elements are good. Now it’s time to get more minute with your testing.

Elements to test, in loose order of importance:

• Offer
• Headline
• Body copy
• Call to action copy
• Image or video
• Page layout
• Design

Keep in mind, the first and last elements of your page that people see are the ones that will stick out most in their minds (meaning, the ones that will have the most influence on whether or not they click to the next place your page leads them).

How Can I Make Sure To Get Clear Results?

What’s wrong with this test?

In case the suspense is killing you, B generated 40% more sales. The problem is that it’s not clear what about B generated the sales.

Was it because, nearing Valentine’s Day, any Valentines-related offer would win?

Perhaps it was the different copy and presentation of the shipping language?

Or maybe it was the color difference, pictures, and picture placement?

While Smiley Cookie found a winning landing page, it’s guesswork to know why version B won. To get clear results, they (and you) would need to test one thing at a time, then use the winning version to test a different change.

To be fair, Smiley Cookie seems to be a fairly active conversion testing company, and this is only one of many tests, but it’s a good example of how promising landing page tests can be undermined by testing too many elements at once.

What Tools Can I Use To Run These Tests?

In the world of landing page testing, there are many options; here are a few of the more prominent ones.

• Unbounce
• Visual Website OptimizerOptimizely
• Liveball by Ion Interactive
• Google Content Experiments (formerly Google Website Optimizer)

Unbounce is a great tool for folks without technical or design backgrounds who want to get landing pages and landing page tests up quickly via a WYSIWYG editor. Optimizely is a great option for marketers who want to quickly change elements on a page without bringing in a developer.

The key is to find solution at a price point and with a functionality set that works for you.

Here’s a shortcut for you – if you find a piece of copy that works in one channels, say a headline in PPC or email subject line, leverage it in another area – your landing page headline, for example.

Ultimately, the goal is to find the right combination of target demographics, traffic sources, conversion funnel elements and lead nurture components.

Bonus Suggestion: Take A Risk

With so much at stake, it’s easy to get overly serious when working on a marketing program.

Don’t.

Especially if fun is what will win the day.

This is the full-screen, image-focused landing page for Spotify (a music site!):

When you think about it, it doesn’t make sense that big beautiful images of trees would sell a music service, but the end effect works, and it’s so simple:

Image, call to action, headline.

In a dozen words, they’ve told you everything you need to know to sign up.

Brilliant.

Josh is the founder of Clever Zebo, an online marketing consulting firm. When not developing cutting-edge online marketing strategies and responding to email, Josh can usually be found taking walks in the park or working on his jump shot.

If you’re thinking of selling an e-course, we’ve made it super simple for you to get it all set up.

The best part? You can charge for your e-course with our PayPal app – and you don’t need any special tech knowledge to do it.

Just focus on writing your email series, and let AWeber and PayPal handle the technical side for you. Here’s how to get started:

Step 1: Make A List

Create a new subscriber list in your AWeber account specifically for your e-course. It’s better to use a new list to keep yourself and your subscribers organized.

Step 2: Write Your Series

Write your e-course as a series of autoresponders – aka follow ups.

Why autoresponders and not plain broadcasts? Because autoresponders send themselves automatically to anyone who registers for your e-course at any time. A person who signs up late can still start fresh at the very beginning of your series.

You can also space the messages out to send automatically over the timeframe you think is appropriate for your course.

Plus, it saves you time. Instead of having to create a new email every week, you can write your entire course in advance and have it go out on its own.

Step 3: Hook Up The App

First, set up a subscription in PayPal for your e-course – their site has quick and easy instructions. You’ll also get a button to put on your site that people can click on to register and pay for your course.

Then, use our PayPal app to set up payment and registration for your e-course – it’s super simple to set up. The app lets you choose a specific list to add people to once PayPal processes their payment – this is where that separate e-course list comes in handy!

Step 4: Launch!

Put your registration button on your site. You’re ready to launch your new e-course!

Wasn’t that simple?

Do You Have An E-course?

Share your experience in the comments! What’s the most successful topic you’ve sold an e-course on? Have you found a perfect length?

Share your sage e-course wisdom with us.

E-courses are great for you and the people who want to learn from you.

Have a blog but no product to sell? Sell an e-course that teaches people something related to your niche.

The best part is, you can earn a passive income for a long time after setting up your e-course just once.

If you’ve never run an e-course before, here’s some reasons why you might want to, plus some ideas to get you started.

First, The Why

There are two big reasons you’d want to run an e-course:

Easy Money

Selling an e-course is a simple way to make money with your skills. You have special knowledge that people will want to pay to get. Use it to supplement your income.

And it’s a way to show off your products, prompting more sales.

Set It Up Once, Make Money Off It Forever

E-courses are easy to set up and they run themselves.

All you have to do is write your content and set it up once and you can run it again and again, bringing in more passive income with just a day or two of work setting it up.

Now, The What

“But what could I teach paying students?” you ask.

Part of this depends on your industry and part of it depends on your skills. Your course should be related to your business and needs some kind of catch – what can you teach that someone else in your industry can’t?

We’ve got a few industry-based ideas to get you started:

Crafters

DIY is huge right now, no small thanks to sites like Pinterest. Start a beginners’ crafting course for people who are new and want to latch onto do-it-yourself trends.

Do you have a secret technique that makes your crafting easier? Share your insider info in an e-course.

Use the holidays to your advantage. Run a course on crafts people can make as gifts for the winter holiday season.

Bloggers

We’ll start out with the obvious. Teach people the secrets to successful blogging, or how to launch their own blog in a month or a week.

Or, run an “expert series” with your top social media and blog marketing secrets that led to your own success.

Got a special niche? Run an e-course around that. If you’re a wedding blogger, you might want to run a class for brides who want to DIY their weddings. Find areas in your niche that your readers would want to delve into more.

Business Owners

You own a business, so you obviously know a thing or two about the ins and outs of setting up shop. Help other aspiring business owners with an e-course on setting up your own business.

The more niche you can make your advice, the more valuable you’ll make your course. Think things like the rules for setting up a business in a particular state or de-mystifying the tax preparation process.

Photographers

Run an advanced course on editing photos in Photoshop, with all the nifty tricks you’ve been using for years.

What about a comprehensive course on smartphone photography? You can cover editing apps, photography principles, getting the right lighting, fancy tools they should or shouldn’t use.

Designers

Are you a decorator? Teach a course on the basics of home design to new homeowners.

Are you a web designer? Teach people how to code a website in a month.

Are you a fashion designer? Teach your followers how to sew their own wardrobe with a series of online tutorials.

Pet Bloggers/Pet Store Owners

How about a “Train Your Pet In One Month” course? Or advanced pet training for owners whose pets are already well-behaved?

How To Set Up?

Running a paid e-course with AWeber is super simple. We’ll cover setting it up in 4 easy steps in our next blog post. Sign up for email updates from our blog so you don’t miss it!

What’s the most valuable thing you have to teach your customers? Share your ideas with us in the comments!

Based on your feedback (which we always appreciate), the AWeber control panel went under the knife for a facelift.

The goal? Easier. Faster. Better.

When you log in, you’ll find a softer color scheme and a new layout designed to make your account easier than ever to navigate.

(It also exposes some features you may not even have known you have access to.)

So What Does It Look Like?

Here’s a quick peek at what to expect:

You can check out a summary of the new control panel on this page.

Want a Walkthrough? Join Us for a Free Webinar

We know change can be unsettling – even when it’s for the better.

So to help you get extra comfortable with these changes, we’re running a free 30-minute webinar on June 6th.

In the webinar, AWeber expert Jay Moore will:

• Introduce you to the Control Panel’s new look.
• Walk you through the improvements and show you how they’ll simplify your email marketing.
• Answer any questions you may have – live.

Sign Up For The Webinar

What Do You Think?

How do you like the new look and flow of your account?

We’d love to hear your feedback – both things you love and further requests – because we plan to never stop improving the service for you.

So please share your thoughts below. Thanks!

So you use one of our apps, maybe Etsy, maybe PayPal to add people to our mailing list. (If you don’t, this is actually still a relevant idea; it’s just extremely important with apps involved.)

There’s one vital step in this process that a lot of marketers miss: sending an app-specific confirmation email that invites customers to join your list.

Why is an extremely customized confirmation message so important? Let me tell you a story.

Once Upon A Time, I Downloaded An iPad App

Everyone on the Internet should know by now that if you enter your email address somewhere, someone’s probably going to use it. Even if it means gleaning it from Facebook.

And that’s exactly what happened to me. The app asked me to create an account with the option to connect through Facebook. I chose that option because it’s quick and easy. The app asked to access my email address and Facebook “Likes.” The only options were “Accept” or “Cancel” – I couldn’t choose to withhold my email address. I trusted the app makers not to spam me and tapped “Accept.”

A week later, this was in my inbox:

No one mentioned a newsletter when I registered to use the app. Can you really assume that providing an email address to register an account is the same as saying, “Yes! Please put your newsletter in my inbox, too!”

The #1 rule of email marketing: You can never assume permission. The app makers have sent me three newsletters so far and I’ve clicked “spam” on all of them.

There’s one thing that could have saved them: sending a custom confirmation message inviting me to join their newsletter first.

What This Means For You

Unlike the app makers, whenever you use one of AWeber’s apps to add new customers to your mailing list, we send a confirmation message to them instead of instantly adding them to your list.

The key to getting people to opt in and not feel like their inbox is getting invaded is to customize your confirmation email to make it sound like an invitation.

Why It’s Effective

Inviting customers with a custom confirmation message works well for a number of reasons:

• You’re not assuming that you have their permission, you’re clearly asking for their permission.
• Your reason for emailing them is directly connected to the purchase so it doesn’t feel out of the blue.
• You’re making your mailing list sound attractive too, so they’ll want to join.

Trust me. It’s a much better approach than an out-of-the-blue newsletter your customer wasn’t expecting.

Have you customized your confirmation email? What do you say to invite your customers and make them feel welcome?

What’s the most irritating marketing trend you know?

I noticed a growing trend of businesses using Unicode characters in subject lines – snowmen at Christmas, hearts for Valentine’s Day, suns for summer sales.

And to me? It looks like something my 13-year-old cousin would post on Facebook. But trusted retailers must be seeing success with these symbols, because they continue to use them.

That got me thinking about other trends and practices out there that seem really annoying but actually produce great results – whether it’s open rates, click throughs or new email sign ups.

Trends That Work… Despite Getting Your Goat!

The trend of using symbols in subject lines got us talking about other trends that seem annoying but really work, like USING ALL CAPS in the subject line or using a popover web form to attract new subscribers. Who wants their web browsing experience to get interrupted like that?

But surprisingly enough, these tactics seem to work and work incredibly well, as results from our own customers have shown.

Have you tried any of these trends with similar results?

Have you come across any other trends that turn you off as a marketer but get results for your campaign? Do you use any of them yourself? Have you gotten surprising results? Share them with us – we’d love to talk about them!

On June 5, you who market with AWeber will see a different layout and a new look in your accounts. All the functionality you use now is still intact (though we’ve thrown in a few new bits you’ve been requesting).

This facelift is all about making things easier for our users. The easier it is to use your account, the faster you can get your email campaign up and running.

To that end, these changes are based on feedback from you.

Our team is always working to make our service more user-friendly, so we spent some time asking you what you liked and what layouts fit your workflows best. Then we adjusted your accounts to match.

Want To See?

We’ve compared SMS text messaging and email marketing before, with advice on the best situations to use each.

But mobile marketing involves more than just SMS. Thanks to smartphones, your mobile marketing can have a wider reach in a number of mobile channels across apps, location-based services, email, mobile search and more.

Let’s take a look at other ways you can market your business mobile-ly.

Mobile Email

Thanks to mail apps on smartphones, email accessed on mobile devices has seen up to 53% higher click through rates than email accessed on a desktop computer. With email more accessible than ever, it’s important to make sure your messages are readable on a smaller screen.

An email that’s not optimized for mobile. Text is too small to read and links are too tiny to “click” with a finger.

An email that is optimized for mobile. Text is easier to read, and more whitespace makes links easier to tap on.

The rise in mobile email also means your messages can be more timely than ever. When your local customers receive your weekly coupon in their inboxes, there’s now a higher chance that they may be just down the street from your storefront when they see your email on their phone.

Take advantage of mobile email with these tips from our blog:
Optimizing Email for Mobile Devices
Mobile Email Design Tips

Mobile Sites And Apps

Mobile sites tie in with mobile-friendly emails. If you’re establishing a mobile presence, make sure it’s easy for visitors to access and read on smaller screens.

If your website is hosted on WordPress, you already have a mobile version that automatically displays when a visitor views your site on their mobile phone. WordPress also offers additional plugins to further customize the look of your mobile-friendly site.

Apps can be a handy alternative to a mobile site. But don’t just create an app for the sake of having an app. Your app should offer some kind of value to your customer, giving them a good reason to want to download it.

However, you can include your establishment’s contact information, an email signup form, a mobile version of your website and even some helpful videos to make your app useful to your customers.

Resources for creating your own app or mobile site:
8 Tools for Easily Creating a Mobile Version of Your Website
10 Great Tools to Create a Mobile Version of Your Site
14 DIY Mobile App Development Resources for Small Businesses
How to Build a Mobile App for Your Small Business

Location-Based Check-ins

Apps like Foursquare allow mobile users to check into their favorite venues and rack up points. Foursquare is great for exposure across your customers’ social networks, but you also have the opportunity to reward them for their loyalty.

Foursquare for Business lets business owners offer specials when a visitor checks into your venue – like $10 off a purchase on your 5th check-in or a free round of drinks when you check in with 5 friends.

You can tie your check-in deals to your email campaign. Update your deals once a month (or more, if you prefer) and email your subscribers with the new coupon info. You can even offer your email subscribers a deeper discount: “Show us this email when you check in for an extra 5% off your purchase.” What a great way to reward your loyal customers and your email subscribers!

And you don’t need a physical storefront to market your brand to mobile users on Foursquare. Take a look at what Time Out New York, an entertainment publication, did with their account. Build a list of important places that represent your brand and encourage followers to check in there to unlock special badges from your business to continue promoting your brand name.

Geo-Targeted Ads

Geo-targeted ads are powerful marketing tools on mobile devices. Someone using their phone to search for local services will find you more easily when your ad is displayed as a sponsored search result at the top of their browser.

The next time an out-of-town visitor searches for restaurants in your city, or the best place to get a haircut, or emergency pet care, or whatever keywords are associated with your business, your targeted ad will display in their search results. And you’ll be a short walk or drive away from fulfilling their needs.

Get started with geo-targeting:
How to Geo-target with Google AdWords
A Guide to More Mobile Ad Networks

Real-Life Examples Of Mobile-Friendly Brands

Mobile-friendly email trends include companies embracing minimal text with bigger buttons and images – easier for a finger to “click”.

Here are three brands with super user-friendly mobile emails:

Live Better America uses a thin template with image blocks that are easier to tap than text links.

Fab uses more text, but it’s big and easy to read.

Lowe’s has simple top navigation, big text and big buttons that’s perfect for interacting with on a small cell phone screen.

What’s Your Mobile Strategy?

Mobile marketing is about being immediately relevant. Making yourself visible locally in these channels will help people find your business more easily the next time they’re looking for what you have to offer.

How do you use email and mobile marketing together? Have any of these techniques worked for you? Will you rely on SMS marketing, or try some newer mobile technology? Do you use our Call Loop integration to tie your mobile campaign to your email campaign?

This post was written by Mikita Mikado, the COO and Co-Founder of Quote Roller.

As the result of one email, we have acquired 30% more paid users and increased our monthly revenue by 25%. How, you ask?

Let’s Start With A Little Background…

At the end of the last year, Quote Roller decided to switching from its freemium-based business model to a trial-based subscription. The reason was simple – we didn’t have enough cash flow to grow and to deliver superb experience to our users.

As a company, we try to be as open as possible with our clients. When we decided to announce that we were moving from a free to a paid subscription service, we started a thread on our blog. As a result of this announcement, we had 200 emails and blog comments in a matter of weeks.

We really appreciated that so many of our clients took the time to send us emails with their ideas, concerns and expectations because, after that feedback, it became clear that the suggested pricing model just wouldn’t work.
Once we reworked the numbers, we posted another blog post, but this time also emailed out a newsletter, ensuring the engagement of even more users, who’d probably missed the first announcement. The new numbers suited our customers’ expectations much more.

But those were just the customers we’d heard from. We still had a huge user base of free users who hadn’t responded to either of our campaigns.

So We Ran A Test

What if we said the free plan was to be discontinued? How many people would really bother to convert to paid users? We were not killing the free plan entirely, since the old users were to be grandfathered into it.

So for our test, we sent out very short email, which appeared to be sent to each customer personally:

Dear Andrew,
Here is Mikita from www.quoteroller.com you’ve signed up for. In case you forgot what it is Quote Roller helps to create sales proposals online.
We plan to discontinue the free plan. I wonder if you’re still interested to use the application.
A lot of things have changed in the app. I’d really appreciate if you can give it another look.
I’d love to provide you with 50% discount in case you decide to continue using the app.
Please let me know if you’d like to keep the account.

The open rate was three times higher than our other newsletters. We sent about 10,000 emails to test this approach and got more 1,000 replies – a rate of more than 10%!

The Results

We chose to use customer feedback to adjust our business model, and that choice:

1. Helped to sell over 300 paid subscriptions.
2. Helped us get honest feedback from customers on what they needed from our product in order to justify the price.
3. Brought in lots of feedback on why they were on the free plan and hadn’t upgraded before.
4. Taught us so much more about our customers!

We kept everyone who asked for it on the free plan. We also got three clients to blog about Quote Roller in exchange for a year of free paid subscription. Pretty darn good results from just one email!

Since then, we’ve been using email as the primary tool to let our customers prioritize our pipeline. As it happens with most startups, we’re used to arguing in-house about what features to build now and what to postpone. After our experiments last year, now we rely more on client feedback by creating quick surveys, asking clients to pick three out of the 12 items they feel are most important.

We are blown away by the responses and suggestions our clients have contributed. The most important features were actually easier to build than the complicated ideas we’d first scheduled on our own.

We’ve learned that email continues to be best way to reach customers when done right. It’s so easy and cost-effective to implement email marketing, and the results can be tremendous. And we’ve learned that asking your customers is a great way to move forward, and doing it via email can achieve better results quicker.

Mikita Mikado is a technology entrepreneur and surfer, whose mantra is quite simple – “Getting Shit Done.” Mikita is an innovator and old-school paperwork hater. Now, he has set his sights on disrupting the proposal industry with innovative paperless solution called Quote Roller.

Email marketing and social media together are powerful tools for building a following for your business. But how can they help you as a local small business owner?

Welcome to the tribe mentality. Your tribe is a fiercely loyal following of customers who are excited about your business.

Using the connecting power of social media and the communication power of email, you can effectively build your following where it matters most – right in your own community.

Start Offline

Building a “tribe” means building relationships with your customers. Email campaigns and social networks extend your reach to locals who might not have noticed your business before. But that doesn’t mean you can give up building relationships in person.

Get involved in community events. Growing a local business is about getting to know the people who support you. Set up a table at the annual street fair. Arrange events with other shop owners on your block. The more relationships you can build in your community, the more buzz your business will get.

Get Social

Social networks have the power of connecting people to each other – and if some of those people happen to be talking about your business, that helps create a bigger fan base for you.

Building a tribe means connecting people who are most passionate about your business with each other. As Seth Godin mentions, “It gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.” And social media talk = free buzz for your business.

What stories will you give people to tell? Here are a few ideas bound to get people fired up and wanting to support you:

Share Your Successes

Whether it’s winning a local competition or breaking an awesome sales goal, share it on your social networks so your customers can see what they’ve helped you achieve (and spread the buzz themselves!)

Lucky’s Last Chance, the People’s Choice Award winning burger joint in Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA

Share Insider Secrets

Nothing gets a fan base fired up more than a sneak peek at insider info. Beauty subscription service Birchbox knows this, and knows how to build up buzz with anticipation:

Share Your Customers’ Stories

Did a customer send you some positive feedback? Quote it on your social networks. Has your establishment done something to make a customer’s day better? Brag a little bit. This shows your human side and builds your cred when others see how much you value your customers. Who wouldn’t want to support a business like that?

Wexford Jewelers congratulates a new couple who got engaged with one of their rings.

Tie It Together With Email

Social media connects your customers to each other around your brand. Email connects you directly to your customers.

Email encourages loyalty from your customers. Someone who found you on a social network or stumbled across your storefront on a Saturday afternoon might not feel inclined to buy from you. But when you’re in their inbox regularly, customers who might otherwise have been one-time visitors will remember you first the next time they’re ready to buy something.

Your email campaign can also tell your business’s story to further connect with new customers. Write a welcome email that personally introduces you or your staff. Talk about how you got here and why. Let them in on a personal level.

Telling your story can even be as simple as using inviting language. DailyCandy is great at this, gushing about things they love and want to share with you, too.

Sharing your story can even be as simple as injecting a little personality into your emails. Shanalogic always includes a small anecdote from the owner:

Your Brand Is Your Community

Making your brand a community unites your customers. Who doesn’t want to be a part of something? And ideally, they’ll invite more people to join them.

What are some ways you’ve built a community around your own business? How has it worked for you?