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Sometimes, you gotta keep your confusion aside and take action. – Yours truly (that’s my recent tweet)! |
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Hello, The year was 2011. I had returned from a conference about launching products online. I’d taken extensive notes and was full of new ideas. One such idea was to use an autoresponder email sequence – a series of pre-written emails that go out to people at pre-decided intervals. I didn’t act on the idea. I had many other things to do, writing the series seemed like hard work and I questioned whether it would work. I attended another event in 2014 and someone explained the benefits of such drip campaigns again. This time I took action. I set up a very simple series of seven emails that would go out on day 1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 30 and 60 after people joined. Then I forgot about it. One year passed by. I was reviewing our analytics numbers and something jumped at me. That simple series of emails was bringing consistent (and significant) traffic to the site. Not only that – it had the second highest conversion rate of everything else we were doing. When I checked the stats in the email system, I also realized that some emails in the series – which I felt were rather dumb – had open and click rates that were multiple times better than any of our newsletters. I became a strong proponent of autoresponder sequences from then on. It took me three years to act on the idea and four to realize its potential. How about you? |
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My observations about autoresponder sequences…The prime benefit of such sequences… Subscribers are most interested in our content when they join our list. If they get useful content in the early days, they stick around longer and become fans. Plus, their interest goes down naturally if they do not get value regularly. Why many of us don’t use sequences? Writing one email is hard enough, so writing a series seems like a herculean task. We may also not know how to set up such a sequence – at what intervals should the email go, what to write etc. If I have a welcome email, should I still set up a sequence? Yes. A sequence gives you multiple opportunities to connect with your reader. Doesn’t a sequence feel like a pushy salesman? Not really – if you write it well. It can also act like a gentle yet committed coach. What kind of emails should I schedule? Wear a “beginner’s mind” hat and think about what all will a new reader need? Provide guidance, tips, resources, links to your existing blog posts – any content that is evergreen. What should be the gap between each email? This can depend on your topic and audience, but a series of seven emails on days 1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 30 and 60 should work well for most people. Can I make some pitch / promote my product? Of course you should. It need not be always about money, but make sure to include a call to action in almost all emails. Even an email on day 30 that asks for a review / feedback. Another rule of thumb that works well is to have two emails of content and promote a product / service in every third email. How do I get started? Think about what you can write in your sequence of seven emails. Just write the first three on the first day, and schedule them up. Do the next four emails tomorrow or next week. Does Email Subscribers plugin support sequence emails? Absolutely. You can set a sequence email campaign easily with Email Subscribers Pro. It’s well worth buying the Pro just for this one feature! How often should I review / revise the sequence? Initially, you can review it every three months. Then annual reviews should be fine. I already use sequences, what should I do? Awesome! Now review the results. Then revise the subject and content as needed. You may also want to segment your lists and set different sequences for different groups of users. I still have some questions / concerns… Just reply to this email and ask. Everyone must use sequences! |
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SEO: Are you (unknowingly) competing with yourself?Keyword cannibalization. That’s a strange yet real problem. When you use repetitive and similar keywords on multiple pages, you’re competing with yourself. If you notice these problems:
Then you may be a victim of keyword cannibalization. Let me explain. Imagine this. A listicle blog post ranks in the 1st position for a search query – and it brings good traffic to the site. Inspired by this, the owner writes a new tutorial post targeting the same keywords. Search engines find the tutorial content better and start ranking it higher. In essence, dragging the listicle blog to 2nd – or even lower – position. Now it was still ok till here. Unfortunately, the conversion rate is bad in the tutorial blog and that drags the overall conversions down. A big blow to the site. That’s how critical keyword cannibalization impacts our sites. What can you do to avoid keyword cannibalization?
In short, you should focus on improving existing, popular blog posts rather than creating more content for similar keywords. Don’t compete with yourself. |
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Stopping all spam subscribersWe are always looking to increase the number of subscribers. But sometimes you may have too many of them. Not the good types though. The spammy / junk / fake subscribers. And that’s the problem Nandita – a travel blogger based in Finland – faced. She writes at Vegan Haven, and uses the Email Subscribers plugin but was getting a lot of spam bot attacks and junk subscribers. Worried about all this, she reached out to us. We recommended some security features – double opt-in and captcha. She turned these on and poof! No more junk subscribers. If you’re getting fake opt-ins, definitely try the captcha and double opt-in. |
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Link salad🥗
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A writing prompt✍ What was your favorite music group / singer as a teenager? Write some things you admire about them or their work. |
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Last week I requested you to tell me about what we can improve in the Email Subscribers plugin. Thank you for all your responses. I’m still listening. If you haven’t replied yet, please reply now and share your feedback about the plugin and how it can help you better. Thanks, |
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