What’s up my friends! It’s JB.  I’ve got a smashing marketing post for you today, revealing some “Fun” I’ve been having lately with email marketing.  Ya’ll know about email marketing, right?  I stinking hope so.  because if you don’t, you’ll discover one of the most PROFITABLE things in our modern world… is how to COMMUNICATE with people through email.  No Joke.  There is seriously not another communication tool I know of as leveraged as email for people like you & me to make a bunch of money with.  And I’m going to share some serious GOLD with you today.  So pay attention.

You now have the ability through an INFINITUDE of ways to “Build an Email List”… whether it’s from emerging mobile, Internet, or offline traffic… you name it… all roads lead back to “Hana”. (hana is heaven, & in business that’s your email list).  Once you’ve built an email list, regardless of how big or small it is… you have an ASSET.  You have a NETWORK at your fingertips, you can communicate with, by pushing some buttons. Your network determines your networth so imagine how much more profitable you become with an email list.   It’s da bomb!

And like you’ll see in this post, your power to make money with email marketing just CONTINUES to grow with time. I’ll show you inside this post.  But first, it’s tough to fathom sometimes how many people these “#’s” on the screen actually equate too.  For instance, my list is about 200,000 people right now.  Try to imagine what 200,000 people actually looks like.  It’s an entire friggin city. Yet I can push some buttons & communicate with them.  Imagine how else you would be able to communicate with an entire city that easily? You’d have to be a major TV station like Fox!

Yet I’m not Fox.  I’m just some punk 27 year old kid who started all of this out of his parent’s basement.  That’s pretty cool.  Because if that’s what’s been possible for me over the last few years, it means there’s an INCREDIBLE amount possible for you as well.  In today’s post, I’m going to share some recent marketing tests & all around shenanigans I’ve been testing with you, & give you some huge insights on how to be more successful with your email marketing.

The “Email Gate Keeper”: SUBJECT LINES

It’s no secret… you can’t make any money from emails unless people open your emails.  Therefore, the FIRST aspect of email marketing to master is your SUBJECT LINES.  It is your subject lines that will determine how many people even open your email, & engage with what you’re saying.

There’s a lot that can be done once inside the email, but we’ll have to leave that to future trainings.  For today, I want to focus specifically on the SUBJECT LINES.  The reason why is… most emails I see coming from people in our industry flat out NEED work.  And with what I’m going to share with you today, you’ll have some amazing direction with how to proceed in all your future email marketing my friends!

Lets dive right in…

First off, I’m going to share some results of some recent emails I’ve sent with you, then just flat out tell you what I think it all means & why I got the results I got.  Then I’m going to give you some of the best tips I have on how to kick butt with your emails.

Email #1: The “Good” Email.

First off some “Stats” on email marketing. You’ve got your…

#1. Open rate: this is how many people opened the email out of how many people it was sent to that inboxed.
#2. Click Through Rate: how many people clicked the link inside your email.
#3. Bounce Rate: how many bunk emails did it hit.
#4. Opt Out Rate: how many people opted out when you sent that email.
#5. Complaint Rate: Who was a total wanker and hit the spam button.

Every single one of these is a vertical you will eventually master as you master email marketing.  Today, we’re only focusing on #1… the open rate. And what largely determines that, is your SUBJECT LINES.  That’s step 1.

Now, email #1 is a pretty strong email for my list.  14,400+ opens is pretty dang good. I’m very happy with that.  Especially considering this list is almost 5 years old, so it could probably REALLY use a cleaning.  Typically, you want to clean your list around every 90 days or so with the people who have opted in, then NEVER opened your messages.

That’s very good for SEVERAL reasons.

#1: it lowers complaints.
#2. It BOOST open rates, which ISP’s (internet service providers. The peeps that let email through) LOVE.  It shows that your email is being opened, & people want it, which is a heavy factor in how they rate spam.

So, what do you think is on my to do list? haha, exactly.  Get the email list cleaned for the first time in years!! Once that happens, We’ll probably find there’s about 50-75k who are consistently opening emails over a period of 90 days.  The rest are just taking up dead space, and we’ll remove them.  It will boost open rate %’s drastically, & the ISP’s will love me a lot more!

So you should do that too with your list.

Now, on to the marketing… I want you to compare this email & how it hits you with this one below.

Email #2: The “Marketer?”

There’s a pretty big difference there?  Do you think the reason a few thousand less people opened it, could just be because it has a “Feel” of marketing? I think so BIG time my friends.  And you’re going to find some amazing insights here about how to run your business in our modern age, and do all your email marketing.

The FIRST email… was definitely marketing but it was more CURIOSITY arousing.  It had the feel of “Content & Marketing”, did it not?  Like… you kind of just wanted to know what the story was about? TIP: introduce the start of a STORY & people will feel compelled to naturally want to finish the story.

The 2nd email… signifying the gates have opened, was definitely not hard to distinguish probably referred to a sales process of some sort.  Especially for everyone who was paying attention to previous emails.  It produced a lot less opens.  Although, since I didn’t measure any other metrics from this email, I can’t conclude it was bad.  Who knows, maybe it was more refined opens & only interested people opened it & it made more money.  I don’t know… all I know is it produced a lot less opens.

But then we start getting into some REALLY interesting things… where I started playing with a few different concepts as of lately. Check this out…

Email #3: YOUR FRIEND

Now this is kind of insane.  I sent this email at the WORST time you’ve ever suppose to send emails… Friday afternoon.  That’s when everyone is checking out.  Yet what happened was SHOCKING to me.  Almost 20,000 people opened it. haha, that’s like an entire friggin town.  And on a friday afternoon!!  It was my highest open rate ever.

Why the heck is that you think?

Notice the subject line… hey.  That’s friggin it… hey

Nothing else.  That’s funny isn’t it? The highest response rate ever wasn’t curiosity arousing, wasn’t marketing, wasn’t anything you’re almost ever told to do… it was literally “hey”.

This is very telling my friends.  It tells us what we are really responding to now a days.  FRIENDSHIP!  We want MEANING! We want a real relationship.  We don’t want to be marketed to, yet that’s what we’re probably trying to do to everyone else!  This struck a ‘compliance’ factor in people where they responded because of the familiarity it had to communications we’d naturally receive from our FRIENDS.  That’s a telling piece of data.

It’s the age of authenticity. Now, that doesn’t mean every email you send says “hey”, or anything like that… because that’s a very bad idea.  Nor does it mean you can’t “Market”, or do anything like that… it simply means you have to be aware of what people are really RESPONDING to now a days, & what they want.  The more AUTHENTIC you are with your marketing, the BETTER you are going to be. IE: the more money you are going to make, the more people are going to respond to you, and the more they are going to like you.

We are entering the age of NATURAL conversation.  Cheesy marketing messages, “Old” tried sales tactics, all the rest is becoming more transparent then ever.  People don’t want that… they want YOU.  They want to friggin know YOU.  They want to buy your stuff, but they just want to trust you’re a real person first who cares about them!

They want to hear a STORY.  Stories will move people more than any facts, figures, or engineered marketing will ever do.  Figure out how to share your offer, your value, in a story… & you’ll watch your response rates EXPLODE.

Thus, we respond to our “Friends” more than we’ll respond to anyone else, period.  So, I ask you… how can you BUILD more of a natural, authentic conversation into everything you do?  How can you begin to “REMOVE” the training you’ve gotten that’s told you to ‘act different’ and revert back to how you act with your FRIENDS… except do it in a professional, grounded, powerful manner.

You’re still going to offer your stuff.  you’re still going to call people to action.  You’re still going to promote what you need to promote.  But how do you do that in as natural of a conversation as possible, coming from as authentic of a place as possible, & be like that in all your marketing?

Those are the MILLION DOLLAR $$$$ questions that if you answer with your actions… will springboard you above 97% of the industry.  Here’s another funny one…

Email #4: the “Homie”

Eager to test this hypothesis a bit more, I wanted to see the response to some friendly slang. This is literally an email I’d send to my friends.  And guess what… MONEY!

Some Considerations:

Now, this doesn’t mean you start acting like a homie in every email my friends… nor should you begin copying all these subject lines because rest assured they will be played out FAST.  In the world of marketing, as soon as people start copying stuff it often times will lead to the demise of the effectiveness of whatevers being copied.

The point here is not that.  It’s to show you WHAT people are responding to now a days, and help you steer your ship in that direction.  For you to think “How Do I Communicate With My Friends?”.  “What is MY Natural Communication Like?”. “How Can I LIGHTEN Up With My Marketing Communications?”

The point is to get you asking questions that will cause a shift in how you approach your marketing, & help you become more NATURAL & Authentic with all your communications.  Rest assured, that’s what people want.  They don’t want you “Copying” other people’s natural communications… haha… they want your own!  That doesn’t mean these subject lines won’t come in handy sometimes, but it’s the PRINCIPLES you need to live by to create lasting success.

Another key thing to note here is the IMPORTANCE of trying new things all the time my friends.  In the world of Marketing… there’s ALWAYS a more effective communication right on the horizon, of even the best one working for you now.  While at the same time… what’s working the best right now, always seems to be receding. It’s strange, but in my experience very true.

The more “fresh” stuff you bring to the table, the more FRESH all of your marketing will be.  Marketing is meant to be fresh, not a stale stagnant thing.  The principles largely remain the same, but the COMMUNICATIONS themselves are always changing.  And unless you keep “playing around” with new stuff, you’ll get stagnant.  Stagnation in business isn’t just stagnation either… it’s a receding stagnation. The key is, keep it FRESH.  Stay authentic.  And become a true “Observer” of people, leaders, trends, & marketers.  Just make a commitment to be an OBSERVER… and keep yourself in tune with the “Edge”. that’s where all the fun is gang!

k, I’m out.  I’m heading up to San Francisco for some meetings, & have a busy few weeks ahead of me.  Have FUN with your business this week.  Go PLAY around.  Test some emails, test some facebook updates, test some PPC ads, go have some fun!  As you can see, just playing around in marketing can often times lead to breakthroughs, & crazy shenanigans in the process!  I’m having a lot of fun with this my friends, follow the lead!

Caio.

Yours in Success,
Jonathan Budd

P.S. share today’s email money insights with your followers & friends.  They’ll appreciate you hooking them up!