Great post from Greham Jones about Writing the Subject line . An element most of us internet marketers struggle with ….
The Huffington Post writes several headlines for every article and then tests them to see which one works best. Over at Upworthy, they write 25 headlines for every article and will measure which one gets the most readers, ultimately sticking with that one. Headline writing for popular media sites is now as much of a science as it is an art.
But there is a message in their methodology. If your headline is not right, you won’t get readers in this fast-paced, distraction-heavy online world. These sites often spend more time on writing the headlines than they do on the article or blog post itself. Indeed, in the world of newspapers the people writing the headlines are usually paid more than the writers of the text below them. Not only that, big-selling tabloids usually have a couple of people whose sole job is to write the front page “splash” headline.
When it comes to email, the subject line is your headline. It is the first thing people see, and it is instrumental in helping recipients make the decision whether or not to open the message.
So the question is, how many alternative subject lines do you write for your emails? Do you split test your email subject lines to find the ones with the best open rates? It is also worthwhile reflecting on how much time you spend writing the subject line, compared with the text of the email itself. If you want the best open rates – particularly for marketing emails – you need to spend more time writing the subject line than you do in writing the email itself.
However, this all takes time. So, how can you write truly engaging email subject lines without spending hours on them? The answer is found in new research that investigated the engagement rate of different kinds of email subject lines.
The study looked at more than 9 million email subject lines in over 3,000 companies sending out emails to more than 2 million people. So it is a substantial study.
Contrary to popular belief, the research discovered that there was no relationship between the length of the subject line and open rates.
The study also found there were some real “turn-off” words in subject lines, including the often used word “free” as well as “secret of” – both words that so-called Internet Marketing Gurus recommend you use.
What is more important is that the “call to action” is at the beginning of the subject, rather than at the end. Furthermore, the study revealed that there were some words that had a positive effect on opening rates such as “still time” or “fastest”. This suggests people prefer saving time to saving money.
So how can you use this information to speed up your subject line writing?
The first thing to realize is that in spite of what many people say, stop worrying about fitting your subject line into a certain number of characters. Focus on the quality of your subject, not the quantity of the characters. That will speed your writing up.
Next, forget trying to squeeze in all those so-called marketing phrases such as “free” or “secrets” and so on. Again, you are less creative with headline writing when you feel compelled to use particular words. When you remove the pressure for specific wording, you’ll write more quickly.
Focus on the reader and tell them immediately what action to take.
Forget about the length of the headline or using so-called trigger wording.
Check you subject line using an analysis tool.
That’s it – do that and your subject lines will engage people and you will get higher open rates. However, it is worthwhile focusing more attention on the subject line than on the email itself.
A few days ago I was talking to my mom about how she sometimes feels like a career change. “Can you think of anything else I could do instead?” she asked me curiously. I just stared at her for a bit before replying, “You do know what I do for a living, don’t you mom?”
One of the internet’s true wonders is that it allows people with little time, low start-up capital and minimal experience to create a business that would be impossible in the offline world.
And as Blog Tyrant grows I notice more and more stay-at-home moms subscribing and emailing me about how they can make an income while their kids are at school or asleep for that hallowed 30 minutes.
This post is dedicated to you.
The next 3,182 words are all about how stay-at-home moms can make good money with online businesses, blogs and websites. I hope you read this article and leave thinking that it is possible.
Not just for stay-at-home moms
Obviously this article is not just for stay at home moms. As I mentioned in the opener, my mom has a job that she really doesn’t like. It causes her a lot of stress and I’m told she often comes home with a massive headache and struggles to sleep at night. I often think that she, a passionate, creative and clever woman, would do extremely well running an online business.
Not for everyone either And while this post is not just for the moms out there, I also have to warn that it is not for everyone. Some people do not have the material to make an online business work. Part of this article is going to be dedicated to discovering whether or not you think you could make it work. It is a very important question to ask yourself.
Why stay-at-home moms can still be successful business owners
I started this article after by being inspired by the sheer amount of moms who email me and subscribe to my list wanting to know how they can start, develop and grow and online business or profitable blog. Their quest for some independent financial freedom, while still devoting their whole life to their young kids, really touched me.
When I was born my mom quit her job as a teacher to stay home with my brother and me, but still continued to sell crafts and artwork at local fairs to earn a bit of cash. I’ll never forget going to those fairs with her and watching her earn all this pocket-money and then spend it mostly on us kids. I thought she was superwoman.
And that is why I believe stay-at-home moms are extremely good candidates for running successful online businesses: they have huge levels of discipline.
I started my online businesses when I was in high school. I’m now 25 and only just really understanding how to work a proper work day. The moms I know, on the other hand, just get it. The delegate authority well, arrange the daily tasks extremely naturally and create an automation in the household that just gets things done. Most of all, they utilize whatever time they have extremely efficiently. This might not be true of all moms but every single mother I know fits this description.
So can you make it work? While I know that every mom has the qualities and ability to run an online business, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can make it work. Distinguishing between the two are very important. Can you:
Dedicate an allotted amount of time to the business every single day? Good business owners are consistent in their efforts. Does your lifestyle allow you do allocate a strict amount of time to the business each day? It might only be 30 minutes before bed.
Deal with failure? Dealing with failure is a massive part of being in business. Are you mentally tough enough to deal with failures, pick up the pieces and start again?
Generate concepts and carry them through? Are you able to generate new concepts and ideas and then have the stability to carry them all the way through to the end without getting distracted by life or other commitments?
Reinvest a portion of the money you make? One of the most important points. Can you set aside 20% to 40% of the money you make and reinvest it back in to the business? This can often be the difference between failure, a minor success and a very successful business.
If you just know that you can do all of these things then you are actually further along than you think. The hardest part of starting a business is often developing the qualities and discipline within yourself to make it work. If you have these skills then you are more than half way there.
Sometimes the hardest part is knowing where to start things off. You feel like you are ready to do something, to throw yourself into a new pursuit, but you aren’t sure how to kick off. I’m here to tell you that it isn’t that hard – you just need someone to point you in the right direction.
1. Start at the end At least three times a week I get emails from people asking me how they can monetize their blog or website. Often I look at their sites and think how easy things would have been if they had just considered this at the beginning. And that is the important point here, start at the end. Before you jump in to your new blog or website you should think about exactly what will be the end product. Do this by considering things like:
What will I sell? What final product are your going to sell on your blog? Will it be your own product or someone else’s?
Who am I targeting? Are you targeting a specific group of people? Who are they? How big is that target audience?
Have I got the material? What are you going to do to get them to your site? If it is blog posts then do you have enough material to attract enough people to keep going?
Rather than just starting and hoping you find some direction down the track, you should begin by thinking very carefully about what you will sell, to whom and how. This is very important.
2. Stay exclusively with your passions The second most important thing to remember is that you need to stay exclusively with your passions. Whether you start a blog or a product website or some other form of online business you need to make sure it is about something you love.
This advice can often seem really wishy washy but I wish someone had hammered it in to me as a young lad. The reason is simple: if you start an online business that you don’t love you will soon give up.
Let’s be clear here. Running an online business can often be tiring and frustrating. Sometimes you have to get up and instead of checking your bank balance you need to find out why your servers have been down all night. Or instead of looking at your new email subscribers you find that your account has been suspended. And if you are tired from being up all night with your baby or looking after the troops you will soon throw it away.
Start at the end but don’t start at all unless you love it. Think carefully about something you are passionate about, something you know and something you can see yourself doing every single day. That is a sure-fire way to make sure you succeed through the tougher times.
3. But are my passions popular enough? A very common question that new website owners or bloggers ask is whether or not enough people are interested in what they want to write about. And the answer is, 95% of the time, a resounding yes. Why? Because Google is sending so much traffic to every little corner of the world. If you collect bark pieces that look like Elvis you can bet there are other who want to connect with you.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t do some solid and comprehensive research in to the target market first. You should. All I am saying is that you should try and make your passions fit in to a business and not try and turn a boring business into a passion. It won’t work.
The different ways stay-at-home moms can make money online
What I want to do now is go through a few of the main ways that moms can make good money online. By no means is this an exhaustive list. Rather, what I have done is thought about the most efficient and time saving ways that moms can explore. The idea is to get online for 30 minutes to one hour a day and make some good money after a few months.
1. Product review sites and blogs The first online business model I want to talk about is product review sites and blogs. This is a fantastic way to gradually build up an income over the weeks, months and years. A good portion of my residual income comes from this method.
How does it work? Basically what you are doing is setting up small mini-sites or blogs that are focused on reviewing a type of product or products that fall within a particular category. For example, if you know a lot about prams you might want to start a pram review site where you look at all the different prams that get released and review them based on common features like:
Look and feel
Materials
Safety
Price range
Etc.
You would be surprised at how many different products you know about. You don’t really even need to try each product once you know what you are looking for. For example, if a fantastic new pram comes out you can look at a bunch of different reviews on Amazon.com and the other big websites and base your review around what other people are saying.
How does it make money? After a while you are going to find that Google indexes your posts and you will be getting visitors who are interested in your reviews. Because you have focused your articles on reviewing products you will find that your visitors are all ready to buy – they are in a shopping mentality. For this reason you can make money with:
Amazon.com links and stores Amazon pays a commission for every visitor you send that buys something, even if it isn’t the actual product you sent them to. For example, if you have reviewed a new pram and have a link to that pram so people can buy it on Amazon but instead they buy a new Kindle then you will make money on the Kindle.
Adsense Although I never really advise people to use Adsense, product sites are one place where it can work quite well. By placing Adsense ads at the bottom and top of each product you review you can get highly relevant ads that pay as much as $1 to $5 every time someone clicks them. This can equate to several thousand a month, especially if you have many reviews or review sites.
Advertising If your review site gets big enough you might start attracting real world advertisers that want to be associated with your store. I know of several camera review blogs who get paid $2,000 a month to place a tiny advert at the top of their sidebar.
As you create more content and review more products you will find that the income gradually increases and increases. This is a trickle down effect where it starts off slow and builds up as you go.
2. Expert sites and blogs The second type of model I want to talk to you about is an expert site. This is very similar to what I do at Blog Tyrant and is a wonderful way to develop a long lasting and sustainable source of income with just a little bit of work each day.
How does it work? With an expert site you are basically writing about a particular topic that you are an expert in. For example, if you went to College and did a marketing degree you might want to start a blog about marketing in an area you are interested in. Or if you cook the most incredible dinners you could start photographing them and sharing recipes, ideas and cooking tips.
The thing about expert blogs and websites is you can make them about really narrow topics as long as you put your own spin on it. For example, I know there are blogs out there which are solely about walking. They discuss shoes, walking tracks, iPod playlists, funny walking stories, different dog leads, etc. With even a very narrow topic you can find a myriad of things to write about. And if you put a personal touch on it you will find that other people are really interested.
How does it make money? The interesting thing about expert blogs is that you can make money with all the same methods as the review sites except you now have a second and much more powerful method to tap in to – email marketing. Sounds confusing I know but it really isn’t. It is an extremely simple, hassle-free way to make a long term income that can drastically change your life.
Here’s how it works:
Start an expert blog Get your own domain and web host and start an expert blog as your “home base” for making an income in whatever form it might take.
Sign up for Aweber and install it on your blog Aweber is an email service that allows you to capture people’s email addresses and then send them out your blog posts and follow up email automatically. Growing this list the main aim of your expert site.
Grow a community The purpose of the blog is to grow an active community of like-minded people who love your work. If you can be perceived as an authority you will have a good chance at making a long term income. Make sure you read this post on developing trust.
Connect with other bloggers In order to expand your reach you should start writing high quality guest posts and then submitting them to other bloggers in your niche. This is a great way to get new visitors to your site.
Launch a product The final stage is to launch a product to your readers and email subscribers. If you have a list of a few thousand people that love your work you will be able to promote services and products to them quite easily. This can be a very complicated process so make sure you subscribe to my list because I am going to be sharing some tips and secrets in this area very soon.
The wonderful thing about this style of blog is that it eventually gains some momentum of its own. Many of the larger blogs found that after about a year they could step back and let other people (guest posters, community, etc.) take care of most of the promotion and content. It is hard in the beginning but does gain traction over time.
3. A journey blog The final blog model I want to discuss is all about sharing your journey with the world. It is very similar to an expert site except that here you are sharing your experience along the way, as you do it, as opposed to positioning yourself as an expert. This style of blog has some very distinct advantages:
It is easier These are easier posts to write because you don’t have to research and make sure everything is correct. You just write about your experience.
You can be yourself While you should always be yourself, when you are sharing a journey you can write straight from the heart and just let other people become branded to your style. It is a very natural platform.
It is easier to get a community If your journey blog is centered around a particular topic (and it should be) you will find that people in that niche naturally become quite loyal to you. For example, if you have just got braces and start writing about that journey you will find a lot of sympathetic braces-owners out there who want to read what your have to say.
How does it make money? This type of site typically does well from growing an email list and the marketing related products to that list. These are called verticals.
For example, if you have a blog about your new pet Beagle you can write emails to your list promoting products like Beagle-proof toys, weight loss food and high quality training guides. As long as you are adding value to your readers’ lives you will find that they can be quite active purchasers.
Some simple but inspiring maths
The last thing I want to leave you with is some very simple maths. The idea of this post was not to give you a complete step by step tutorial but rather to inspire you with a few ideas and motivate you to get moving. This simple maths always helps me get through the tough days.
1. Set up costs Set up costs for an online business are close to zero.
A domain name (free for the first year) and hosting: $3.49 per month from BlueHost.
Total cost per year: $41.88.
For around $40 you can start your own professional blog that can, after a few months, earn you a consistent amount of money. This is a massive difference to doing anything in the offline world.
Why Blue Host? The reason I recommend Blue Host as your first blogging host is because they have 24/7 LIVE SUPPORT that will help you install WordPress and get started. That takes a lot of stress out of it all.
Still confused about how the set up works? I made a short video that attempts to explain how it all fits together.
2. Potential earnings Now let’s take a look at some potential earnings from an expert style blog like Blog Tyrant.
Get 100 visitors per day (very easy after two or three months)
Convert 5% of visitors into email subscribers = 1825 subscribers per year.
Sell an eBook for $37 to 20% of your list = $13,505 in your first year.
To be honest these numbers are very conservative because if you write a lot of articles on a consistent basis there is a good chance you will get a lot more subscribers. Blog Tyrant, for example, is far far ahead of this monetary schedule after only a few months.
I think that an auto responder tool is essential for every
marketer or business online, the 2 leading tools in the market are Aweber and GetResponse.
When you need to decide between the two there is much more
than the price to compare, yet if you are just starting to build a list and
have less than 1000 subscribers and a tight budget it’s a question you would
probably ask yourself.
As I have tried both tools in my lists I can tell you about
my experience using the products and in addition to add a general view of the
product from other reviews I read about the subject.
LETS START WITH WHAT THE
HECK IS AN AUTO RESPONDER
Aweber andGetresponse are both
auto-responders that are used by any business online and email marketers
to:
- Hosting and maintain your list of subscribers
- Create newsletters and broadcast to your lists of
subscribers in the schedule you define up to one year in advance.
- They give you an option of dividing the email marketing
campaigns for different niches, for new subscribers and for subscribers already
listed for a while.
- convert blog post to email
- split test
- track subscribers activity , how many subscribers opened
the email how many clicked the link and how many purchase the product.
- good support and large knowledge base - you can get in
touch by phone chat or email in case you need help.
- integration - good integration with 3rd party tools as
this is the leading product in the market for a reason.
PRICE COMPARISON
GetResponse
is cheaper than Aweber if you are
a newbie and your list of subscribers include less than 1000 people GetResponse lets you
start your marketing journey from $15.
Aweber will charge
you $19 for a 500 list of subscribers but $29: for 25,000 people.
For experience marketers with a large list of subscribers
the differences are small. As with both systems you get a discount if you
sign-up for a year
GetResponse
will usually be cheeper at least until you have 25k subscribers
Aweber
will also charge you for anybody who unsubscribes whileGetResponse won’t.
TEMPLATES
Aweber’s templates
look a bit better than Getresponse
but as I don’t use the templates It’s very hard for me to be objective
Getresponse’s templates look fine and are easily to amend.
Aweber’s templates
are slightly more visually appealing but overall there is not much of a
difference in the complexity and the design.
KEY FEATURES
Getresponse
and Aweber offer a similar feature set,
the key features being:
•Ability to capture data and host mailing lists (you get a
little bit of HTML code that you can insert on your site or social media
profiles to capture email addresses)
• A wide range of predesigned e-newsletter templates
• Autoresponder functionality which allows you to send
automated e-newsletters at pre-defined intervals to subscribers after they sign
up
• Statistics on the percentage of subscribers that are
opening your emails, clicking links or unsubscribing
• RSS to e-newsletter functionality (useful for
automatically sending your blog posts to subscribers on your mailing list)
• Easy-to-use message builders that allow you to create and
edit e-newsletters without coding
• Integration with various third-party sites/tools (for
example, online shopping services such as Amazon Payments, Paypal and
Google Checkout or CRM tools like Capsule and Salesforce) - this allows you to
add customers to mailing lists at the point of sale, for example, or use Aweber
and Getresponse to send e-newsletters to customers on your CRM system.
• Responsive email templates.
IMPORTING DATA
Both GetResponse
and Aweber allow this feature and I
couldn’t fault any of them for not doing the job properly.
INTEGRATION WITH OTHER
SYSTEMS
Aweber still
does better job than Getresponse
is in its integration with third party sites and tools, they both tools
offer good integrations with other sites and tools such as Paypal,
Amazon Payments , leadpages but many Getresponse integrations
involve setting up an additional adapter to complete the functions.
LANDING PAGE CREATION- Optin Pages.
Landing pages or 'squeeze pages' or sometimes called “optin
pages” are web pages designed to capture your name and email address.
They typically contain a form, some decent images and a
small amount of text spelling out the benefit of submitting your email address
- it's generally better to use landing pages for online ad campaigns over a
form that sits on your website, simply because they are optimized for capturing
data (as they contain less content to distract users).
Getresponse
gives you a landing page creator out of the box, that allows you to make
use of 100+ templates and a drag and drop editor to create a great landing
pages. To do similar things with Aweber,
you would need third party tools, or to hire a designer to code your landing
page – this is a tedious task.
.Free trials
The closest you get to a free trial in Aweber, is a $1 trial ,Getresponse, on the other
hand, give you a 30 day free trial and no credit card details are
required.
WHAT IS THE CONCLUSION?
Both Aweber and Getresponse are
great for marketing email campaigns and maintenance of your lists in some areas
one is better than the other but both came along way from the early days of
email marketing and indeed it is difficult to say which one is better. If you
are a new I would recommend to start with get response as you get 30 days trial
and the price is more competitive up to 1000 subscribers. If you are looking
for better integration I would go for Aweber
as it is currently the leading tool and therefore 3rd party integration is at a
click of a button.
