Increasing Email Open Rates

Recently, I sent out a list of marketing tips and takeaways to my email readers, and as always, I got a flurry of feedback (which I love).

Occasionally, I get readers who challenge me on certain points and usually tell me that some other “guru” told them the opposite.

That’s cool, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years and have stats and experiments to back up my tips.

Will all of my tips work for you?

Nope.

You have to test because what works in my niches might not work in your niche.

Make sense?

For example, I got a ton of feedback on the tip below:

4. Acquiring just a prospect’s email address on an opt-in form might increase conversions, but long-term statistics indicate that having the ability to personalize an email message will get higher open rates.

Now, the above tip, I’ll argue until the cows come home and I have recent stats to back me up.

We’d been emailing to a list of 30,000+ buyers/prospects in another niche and open rates had dipped below 3%.

Horrendous, I know.

That’s when I had to step in and figure out the heck was going on.

One mistake I noticed my team was making was not personalizing the emails. I always try to personalize any emails I send because when people see their name in the subject line, it just does something to them.

Even though they know it’s just a placeholder.

So, I went through the database and made sure every contact had their proper name in the first and last name fields (it was an epic mess from a previous import).

Yes, it took some time to fix, but when I emailed out the same list again, with their first name in the subject line and in the email copy, look what happened to open rates (turn on your images to see the image below).

Open rates

Open rates shot up from 2.89% to 15.32%.

That is a 5X increase in the number of people who saw the latest email message.

Now I can’t attribute this solely to the personalization of the email because it had a different subject line and different body copy that could have avoided spam filters, but I’m sure it helped majority.

Have a dead list you want to resurrect?

Personalize your emails.

Want to build a better relationship with readers?

Personalize your emails.

Want to make more income from email?

Personalize your emails.

I know that cleaning up email contacts and doing tedious things like replying to individual emails (when you engage your readers) is not exciting.

But it pays my bills and more.

Best wishes,

Gauher Chaudhry

 

 


How I Got My Start

I get asked a lot of times on how I got my start in the Internet marketing world to generate an online income.

Well, that’s a story that goes back to 1996 when I was in my last year of college.

I remember my sister telling me about this thing called the “Internet” that was getting real popular.

I looked at her and said “Who cares, it’s just a fad…”

Yup, what a serious misjudgment of epic proportions.

I ended up getting my first email account a few weeks later through the college’s network and started to “dig” this new form of communication.

I started communicating with my college buddies and ended up getting jokes forwarded to me.

This was long before social media, so when you wanted to share something, you forwarded the email.

Long story short, I ended up on some guy’s joke list.

He would send out a daily joke to people who requested to get on to his list (it was all referral based and he didn’t even have an optin form).

Before you know it, he ended up building a list of over 100,000 readers (and this was back in 1996).

Then I noticed something.

He started to include a “sponsor ad” before each joke of the day and had a small blurb letting people know that he was selling ad space.

I inquired and asked him how much would it cost to sponsor one of his daily emails.

He told me the cost for one daily ad would be $300 (which I thought was very reasonable).

When I asked the owner to book me an ad spot for the following week, he laughed and told me, “Dude, I’m booked for the next 6 months.”

Now, it didn’t take long for me to do the math.

365 days x $300 = $109,500

This guy was making over six figures a year sending out a joke a day to his email list.

I was in my last year of college and to get hired for junior accounting position at a $26,000 yearly salary was like hitting the jackpot.

Yet, here was this guy making 4X that sending out a joke to his email list each day.

You see, this guy had built an audience.

He built his tribe of raving fans.

He probably would have made a lot more money promoting affiliate products rather then selling ad space to 3rd party advertisers.

But there were very few affiliate programs back in 1997 and advertisers were paying big bucks for advertising.

That’s when I jumped online and started my own entertainment email list, sending out useless facts to anyone who was interested.

In fact, I remember making my first $3 affiliate commission promoting a finance CPA offer to that list.

I walked into my job (that I had at the time) waving that $3 check telling my buddies that I was making money online.

They all laughed and couldn’t believe it.

Sure, $3 ain’t that much, but proof of concept was there.

Anyone could make money online.

It’s crazy how much has changed 20 years later, but one thing that has stayed steady is email marketing plays a vital role in most businesses online.

If you haven’t started building your own email list, your tribe… what are you waiting for?

Gauher Chaudhry


The Royal Road To Riches

You might not know this, but I actually started my first business as a teenager back in the late 1980’s.

Yes, a long time ago.

It started when I came across a full page sales letter ad in a popular magazine taken out by an individual by the name of John Wright.

The headline was compelling…. “How To Make $25,000 Per Month – Guaranteed.”

Sweet and simple.

The sales letter was written using blind sales copy (meaning that promises are made, yet you’re not quite sure what business you’ll be getting into).

It was for a book that would explain exactly how this business worked and it only cost $12.95.

So I ponied up whatever I had as a young teenager and sent a check by snail mail to get the book.

Royal Road To RichesThe title of the book was “The Royal Road To Riches” and I still have it here on my bookshelf as I type this email.

It took about a week to receive the book and I still remember ripping open that brown envelope to start reading the book.

The premise of the book was that “information” will always be in demand and if you can provide valuable information that the market wants, you can make a lot of money.

I loved the concept and decided to sell information by mail in the form of reports and books.

This first and only attempt at selling information by mail (mail order) was a complete disaster because I simply didn’t have enough capital to get it started.

Remember, I was a broke teenager and this was a decade before selling information on the Internet was even possible.

Fast forward to today and thousands of marketers have made huge amounts of money selling valuable information online.

The ability to take instant electronic payment and provide instant digital deliverability had changed the game for many marketers including myself.

Although “The Royal Road To Riches” didn’t work out for me initially, the concept always stuck with me and I finally released the my success with this concept a decade later.

One friend of mine, Mark Ling, has made millions of dollars online selling digital information in dozens of different markets.

He is a master at selling information online and has created a 6-step master plan on how you can follow his footsteps and earn income online selling information in weird little niches.

But he is careful to explain that it’s not only information that he sells, but rather something more unique.

It’s a free download and a quick read.

Download Here


Why Steve Jobs Would Have Loved Ryan Levesque’s Ask Method

Today, I want to break down what’s called the “Ask Method”.

It’s about a technique so powerful, it catapulted a friend I know from making $0 to $25,000 a month in 18 months of his very first business. And that’s why I want to tell you about this.

His name is, Ryan Levesque, and he is someone you’ll want to remember as you grow your business.

levesque

When I heard what Ryan was doing, I stopped what I was doing to hear more about it. And that’s exactly what I hope you’ll do right now too.

Because he’s developed something so different and intuitive, you won’t believe how he’s getting unbelievable numbers of new customers coming into his business, day in and day out.

And, if that sounds interesting to you like it does to me, then stay with me here as I share what I consider something that can not only enrich your business many fold, but even turn it around.

In the “Ask Phenomenon.” Ryan has mastered what he calls, counter-intuitive intelligence and it’s a big part of the, “Ask Phenomenon”.

To put it lightly, this method Ryan is known for is revolutionizing the way entrepreneurs and companies everywhere are launching and growing their businesses online. To give you a little background on what got Ryan thinking in this direction is he was moved by the mindsets of great marketing men before his time. These great marketing minds gave us insightful clues on why this works.

In fact, the secret of succeeding in business today is the same as it was a hundred years ago.

And that simply is, find out what people want, and give it to them.

Now here’s the thing if that sounds like an oversimplification. The real challenge is you can’t find out what people want because the truth is, people don’t know what they want.
Let me explain that because we’ve always heard it put that way, however, there’s more to it you probably haven’t heard.

Just listen to what, Henry Ford, had to say about this and it will clarify exactly what I mean.

“If I asked people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses”. – Henry Ford.

Ok, so you can clearly see the insight in that statement on asking what people want. Had Mr. Ford based his ideas on it, you can only imagine how it would have affected the history of the automobile.

Here’s another one more recently. Steve Jobs said: “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them”. – Steve jobs.

So, the big take away here in what our giants of marketing already knew and by realizing it they approached their businesses in the following way.

They figured out what people wanted to buy even before people knew they wanted to buy it.

You may want to reread that previous line again to let it sink in. Because that’s just how powerful this is and there’s a lot more to know about the “Ask Phenomenon” if you want to catapult your online business to a much higher level.

Now here’s the big question that should be circulating in your mind and that is: How Do You Do This?

i.e. Ask people what they want, so you can figure out what they’ll buy before they buy it.

That’s some deep insight any business would die to have and I’m sure you would agree.

Well this is exactly what the “Ask Phenomenon” is all about.

The problem is people don’t really know what they want as, Henry Ford and Steve jobs, pointed out so well. But here’s the good news. My friend, Ryan, has developed a modern way to decipher it.

And it starts with asking the right people the right questions. However, asking people the right questions is not what you might expect. There’s a specific sequence you need to follow that’s counter-intuitive and it’s a critical part of the “Ask Phenomenon”.

Yet, it’s a method that’s so powerful and universal it goes right in and touches your prospects in a way that brings out everything you need to know to give people exactly what they want. And you’ll know it even before they know it.

What this will do for you is change the way you do business and even create new businesses by enabling you to develop intuitive products and services that people want.

As impressed as I am with Ryan’s “Ask Phenomenon” method, I would go as far to say even Henry and Steve would appreciate what this can do for business insight, the kind that made Ryan’s first business go from, $0 to $25,000 in a single month. So just imagine what it could do for your business.

Now if you like what I just shared with you, this is just scratching the surface.

There’s a video I think you’ll also want to watch to get the full gist of Ryan’s “Ask Phenomenon” and I highly suggest you watch it.

Here’s the link for the video – Click Here.