OK, so you have reviewed, tweaked, updated, and added messages to your follow-up sequence. Now What? We touched a little at the end of yesterday’s blog post on the whole idea of moving forward and continuing to improve your email marketing. Trust me, there’s always room for improvement, for anyone, including me. Creating this for
Obviously, a review like this is a great way to update and improve things. However, it’s just as important to keep an eye on things and tweak them more regularly or better yet… as you constantly move forward. Yet, we all know, it’s way too easy to put this task on the back burner and focus on new and exciting ideas or more urgent tasks instead. That’s why it’s important to make a plan to keep improving your auto-responder and follow-up emails going forward.
Create a Plan
So, what would that even look like? Here is a starter plan that you can tweak to fit your needs.
- Review your free gift magnet and consider changing it out every three to six months. Then go ahead and put that on your calendar.
- Review the offers you are making in your autoresponder sequence every three to six months to make sure they are still appropriate for your business direction and that the links still work. I know I have deleted pages on my site forgetting that I had still had emails going out that were linked to them. Yup, put this on your calendar too.
- Continue to add new auto-responder messages to your list. You can either set aside a particular day of the week to do that or work on it in larger batches. Let’s say you’re going to add one new email message per week. You could put it on the calendar as a weekly activity that gets done every Tuesday morning for example. Or, if you prefer to work in batches, you could set aside a day every couple of months where you write and add 3 months’ worth of emails. Find a rhythm that works for you and then get in the habit of doing it regularly.
- Monthly – make it a habit to look at your opt-in stats. We talked in earlier posts about how much you can learn from them. Look at open rates and unsubscribes in particular. The most important stat for your bottom line is of course how many people take you up on your offers. Study any email offers or solo emails that are converting well for you and try to do more along those lines.
- Every three to six months take a look at your opt-in conversion rates. Play around with your opt-in forms and pages, the placement of the forms, the copy etc. and see if you can get that percentage to go up. Once you have a list of at least a couple thousand subscribers you can split test your forms and pages. Most email service providers offer that feature, so take advantage of that. Set up tests and always have one running. Continue to try to beat your previous conversion rate.
- Consider setting up different opt-in funnels. You can target specific subsets of your target audience with special funnels designed just for them. This allows you to speak directly to them and their particular needs. Continue to grow your list by setting up new funnels and new
auto responders on a regular basis.
Don’t worry, about trying to do everything all at once. Tackle creating or updating your free gifts and autoresponders one at a time. I know it takes time, thought, and energy away from things that may seem more pressing. However, you are in your business for the long haul and the time you spend on this is an investment in your future. Make them a priority, put them on the calendar and get it done (one step at a time). Your list and your business will grow that much faster when you do. You’ve got this!