How to Use Continuous AB Testing to Increase Conversions

When was the last time you updated your website?

If you have to stop and think for a minute to answer that question, you may have a problem. Your website needs to be monitored and updated on a regular basis.

However, you don’t want to make changes without any rhyme or reason. That’s why you can use A/B testing as a tool to help guide your website updates.

But before you start A/B testing, you need to understand how it works. It’s not just a one-time thing. Some of you may have tried these tests in the past and seen an improvement. So why did you stop?

For those of you who have never tried A/B testing, it can be difficult to know where to get started. Regardless of your situation and experience with A/B testing, I can help you out.

Continuous A/B testing will make your website more efficient.

I’ll explain how you can use this strategy to improve your business and help you boost your conversion rates.

How A/B testing works

A/B testing isn’t really that difficult of a concept to understand. You start by creating a hypothesis about a certain element and then run a test to see if your theory was right.

To do this, you create two different versions of your website. Then half of your site traffic will get sent to one version, and the other half gets directed to the variation.

Here’s a visual representation to give you a better understanding of what I’m talking about.

Once you set up the test, you wait and see which variation has higher conversion rates. Then you draw conclusions and update your website with the version that converts the most.

What’s tricky about A/B testing is deciding how long to test things and what elements need to be tested.

Honestly, there’s not one right answer to those questions. But I’ll give you some guidance to help you run these tests efficiently.

Test your CTA buttons

When you’re trying to get higher conversions, it’s best to start with the button that gets people to convert.

Obviously, these buttons are different for each company in every industry. It depends on your goal on a specific landing page as well. Some of you may be trying to drive a sale while others may be trying to get site visitors opt-in to their email subscription list.

The key here is just picking one element to start. You don’t want to test two theories at once. Testing multiple hypotheses doesn’t give you conclusive results because you won’t know which variation impacted the results.

That’s why you should be running tests continuously to maximize the efficiency.

Start with something subtle and easy such as the size, color, or placement of your CTA button. For example, you could hypothesize that a larger CTA button will have higher conversions.

You can also test the actual text written on your CTA button. Try testing power words against action words.

Here are some of the power words that convert the most.

Are any of these words currently used in your call-to-action?

Here are some more statistics about the conversion success of words that entice an action.

Based on the numbers in these graphics, you could hypothesize that a call to action that says, “Sign up for free” will have higher conversion rates than one that says, “Download now.”

But there’s only one way to find out. Test it.

After you test one of these and you’re satisfied with the results, move on to another. So if you started with the size of your CTA button, then move on to the color. After that, you can test the text or placement.

Test all of the CTAs this way on each page of your website.

Less than half of websites have a CTA button that can be spotted in less than 3 seconds. So putting so much effort into testing your CTA will definitely give you an edge over your competitors.

Evaluate your headings

After you’re satisfied with your CTA button analysis, move on to other components of your website that stand out the most.

Your headlines and subheadings definitely jump off of the page at visitors, so it makes sense to test those next.

If your headlines aren’t worded properly, visitors may not even read all of the content on the page. So while testing the CTA may seem more important, visitors could miss out on your entire value proposition if the headers don’t keep them engaged.

In addition to conversions, you should be looking at analytics that shows how long each visitor stays on the page for.

If one headline causes the average page viewing time to be significantly longer than the variation, it will definitely increase the chances that the visitors will convert.

Here’s an example of an A/B test on a website’s headline.

As you can see, the two pages are identical, except for the headlines. The variation has different words for the main heading and subhead.

The test yielded conclusive results. Website visitors who saw version A filled out the form at a 27.76% higher rate than the ones who saw version B.

If your tests are only within 5% or so if each other, you may not be able to say that one is definitely better. To find out for sure, you can run an A/A test before your A/B test to see what your standard deviation is between the same version of a web page.

Improve your checkout process

For those of you with an ecommerce website, you need to find ways to minimize shopping cart abandonment.

Using A/B tests on the layout of your checkout process can really help you maximize conversions. You’ll be able to tell which elements are working and which ones can be tossed away.

I’ll give you some ideas of what you can start testing.

Are you accepting coupon codes? If you have an option for visitors to input a coupon code during the checkout process, it could cause them to go searching for a code.

But if these codes aren’t always readily available and they’re just something you use to offer a disgruntled customer, it shouldn’t be a primary element of your checkout process.

Test it out to see what kind of results you get.

You could also test a guest checkout vs. login to checkout conversion rates. I’m assuming you’re offering a secure checkout, so use A/B tests to see if the size and placement of your security badges have an impact on conversions.

Test every element on the page. You’d be surprised at how something small could make a huge difference.

Here’s a great example of something subtle that iHerb used to when A/B testing their checkout process.

Take a look at the left side of the screen. They have a shipping cost calculator. All the customer has to do is input their zip code and they’ll get an estimate on their shipping costs.

But the heavy-duty bag promotion draws lots of attention away from the calculator.

Here’s another version of that same page.

As you can see, the image was removed and the “Calculate” button was placed much closer to the “Proceed to Checkout” CTA.

OK. So technically they changed two elements of this page, which I know I said you shouldn’t do. But this was subtle enough to be effective.

I’m a big advocate for removing clutter from your pages, so I think it was a smart decision to get rid of the image in addition to moving the placement of the calculator.

Find out which images convert

You definitely want to use images to help you improve your website. But it’s just a matter of what images to use and where to place them.

If you’re on the fence about a decision, or you have some images already in place on your website, run A/B tests to see which ones have the highest conversion rates.

For example, you could test an image of a man vs. an image of a woman to see if one yields different results. Or you could test an image of the same model, but with different facial expressions, such as smiling vs. a serious face.

Is it better to have one big image as the background of your website? Or will a white background with the image in the forefront have higher conversions?

The only way to find out for sure is by testing your theory.

You should also consider the size and position of your images in relationship to other elements of your website.

Continuously run these tests to maximize your conversion rates.

For example, let’s say you find out that a photo of a man converts higher than a photo of a woman. Now you’ve got to find the most optimal position of that photo on the page, so your tests will continue.

Test different color schemes

Colors can make a huge impact on how people see your website. That’s because certain colors have a psychological impact on our mind.

We’re programmed to associate certain colors with things. For example, but what color does everyone wear to a funeral? I’m not trying to sound grim, but that’s one of the reasons why we automatically associate the color black with death.

Test colors for every component of your website, such as the color of the text, the menu icons, and CTA buttons.

Here’s an example that tests the colors of the call-to-action on this website.

The pages are identical, including the text. The only thing that’s been changed is the color. Refer back to what I said earlier about our minds automatically associating certain colors with things.

Well, we’re programmed to go on green and stop on red. So a valid hypothesis for this A/B test would be that a green CTA button will have higher conversions than the red one.

Use A/B tests to improve your emails

Everything we’ve discussed so far is based around your website. But that’s not the only platform that you use to get conversions.

A/B testing is not limited to your website. You can also test factors from your email marketing campaigns.

Test things similar to what we’ve already talked about. Focus on your CTA, colors, images, headings, and text.

But with email, you can test other factors as well.

For example, use A/B testing on your email subject lines. The content of your message can be the same, but see if you have a significant difference in open rates and conversions based on the subject.

Test the word count of your marketing emails.

Recent studies suggest that emails between 50 and 125 words have the highest conversion rates.

So think outside of the box when you’re running these A/B tests.

Don’t assume that you’re only allowed to test elements of your website. Email campaigns are another viable option.

Revisit your early tests

A/B tests don’t just last for a day or two.

Typically, you’ll want to run each test for at least a few weeks or so to make sure that you’ve got a large enough sample size to yield conclusive results.

So let’s say you run 4 or 5 different tests on your CTA button. That alone could take 3 months. Then you move on to test your headlines, images, colors, and checkout process.

By the time you get through all of these tests, a year or two could have passed since your initial test.

Well, don’t stop now. Go back and see if your CTA is still as efficient as possible.

Conclusion

A/B testing is one of the best ways to increase your conversion rates.

But you don’t just run one test and call it a day. This process needs to be a continuous part of your marketing strategy. Always strive to make improvements to your website.

Test things like your CTA buttons, headlines, and checkout process.

You can also test visual elements such as your images and color schemes on your pages.

A/B testing isn’t just restricted to your website. You can apply this strategy to your email marketing campaigns as well.

Once you finish testing something, move on to the next element. After you’ve tested everything, start back at the beginning.

What elements of your website are you testing first to improve your conversion rates?

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Create a Waterfall of Downloads for Your E-Book

Writing your first e-book is exciting. But once it’s finally written, you’ve got to find a way to get it in the hands of your audience.

After all that hard work, long nights, and endless research, it would be a shame if your book went unread.

For those of you who have recently written an e-book, are in the process of writing one, or planning to write one in the near future, you’ve got to start thinking about your distribution methods.

You could be the best writer on the planet, but if you don’t know how to market yourself, nobody is going to know it.

That’s how you need to approach your e-book distribution strategy. Think like a marketer. Not everyone with great writing skills is a marketing expert.

So for those of you that need some guidance on getting tons of downloads for your newest e-book, you’re in luck.

I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to create a waterfall of downloads. Here’s how you do it.

Start taking pre-orders

Don’t wait until you’re done writing the e-book to promote it. Taking pre-orders in the early stages is a great way to build hype for your e-book and brand.

If people know that they can get it in advance, it might make it seem even more appealing.

Lysa TerKeurst used this strategy to promote her e-book, Uninvited.

This approach is great because it gives people a reason to pre-order it. Anyone who pre-ordered this copy will be able to download the first five chapters right away.

They’re also promoting some limited free gifts, which were undisclosed. Both of these promotions can definitely peak the interest of potential readers.

Getting to download chapters in advance gives people a feeling of exclusivity. They have something that not everyone else has access too.

Plus, if they enjoy the first chapters they could even start promoting the book themselves.

Come up with other ways to give people an incentive to pre-order your e-book before it gets released. If you’re charging for downloads, you can offer a discounted rate for anyone who pre-orders it.

Even if people don’t order it in advance, just putting it out there acts a promotional method and creates a buzz around your e-book for when it officially releases.

Record an audio version

You’ve got to understand that not everyone prefers reading e-books. So recording an audio version can make your book more enticing to a wider audience.

According to the Pew Research Center, print books are still more popular than e-books and audio books.

E-books are more popular than audio books, but as you can see from the data, there are still people who prefer listening to audio books.

But how does releasing an audio book increase downloads for your e-book?

You’ve got to pair the two together. Say your e-book downloads comes with a free audio version as well. Pitch this any way that you want.

You could even upcharge for copies of the audio book and offer the e-book as a free download.

If you continue to release different formats of your e-book, it will appeal to a wider audience and increase the chances of you getting as many downloads as possible.

Create blog posts out of each chapter

For those of you fortunate enough to have an active blog, you need to take advantage of that channel as a marketing resource.

You’ve already got an audience that’s familiar with your voice and visits your website to read your blog. Those are the people that you need to target first.

It’s going to be much easier to get downloads from your blog audience than from people who don’t know who you are and have never heard of you before.

Rather than just blogging about your e-book once or twice, you can generate lots of blog content by writing a post about each chapter. There are so many benefits to this marketing strategy.

First of all, it gives you a way to add fresh new content to your website. This is great for SEO purposes and improving your Google ranking, which can drive traffic to your website.

But blogging is great because it gives you an excuse to promote your new content with your other marketing channels.

For the past four years, bloggers have been using social media as the primary method of driving traffic to their posts.

So each time you blog about a new chapter, you’ve also got an excuse to post on your social media accounts.

Another reason why you should employ this strategy is because these blogs are going to be super easy for you to write. You’ve already done all the heavy lifting with your e-book.

These blogs are just going to be quick summaries of the chapters, which you already know like the back of your hand. So it’s not like it’s going to take you lots of time and effort to write this content.

If you can keep your readers engaged with these blog posts, it can lead to e-book downloads. Just make sure you don’t give it all away in the blog. Otherwise, they won’t have a reason to download.

Tease your audience just enough to keep them interested, but make them download the e-book to get the full effect.

Place a download link on multiple places on your website

Obviously, you need to be promoting your e-book on your website. But don’t restrict that promotion to just one landing page.

Put the download link all over your website. Just make sure that it’s not overwhelming or appear as spam. Websites with simple designs have higher conversion rates.

So for example, put a CTA button on your home page, side bar, and slider menu. If someone navigates to another page on your website, have a pop-up window appear with a download link.

Doing all of this will make it obvious that your e-book is available for download.

Right now, marketing experts are not properly utilizing CTA buttons.

Less than half of websites have a CTA button that can be spotted in less than three seconds. That’s far too long. More than 70% of businesses don’t have their CTA on the interior pages of their website.

Don’t be one of those people who are making this mistake.

You should also start A/B testing your CTA button placement, size, wording, and color. These tests will help you make sure that your efficiency is maximized and you’re getting the most amount of exposure as possible.

Try to get downloads from your email subscribers

As I said earlier when we discussed blogging, you’ve got to try to get as many downloads as possible from people who are already familiar with your brand.

Targeting your email subscribers is perfect for this. These people are interested enough in your brand and voice that they signed up to hear from you on a regular basis.

It’s much easier than trying to find downloads out of thin air. Check out how Help Scout uses this technique in their email newsletter.

It’s direct and straight to the point. They aren’t trying to promote anything else except for this new e-book.

The message ends with a clear call-to-action button that’s a link for their subscribers to download the e-book.

For those of you charging people for an e-book download, you can try to entice your email subscribers by offering them a discounted rate.

Publish infographics with research from your e-book

People love visuals.

Infographics are great because they help drive more traffic to your website. Here’s why.

If you start publishing high quality infographics then other websites will use your visuals to improve their own content. As a result, you’ll get a referral link.

This will increase the chances of your book getting exposed to a wider audience.

You can even add a logo or some other identifying mark to all of your infographics that has the title of your book. The headline of each infographic could include the title of the chapter you were referencing.

For those of you who have never made an infographic before, don’t be intimidated. It’s actually quite easy.

There are plenty of online tools and resources available that let you create customized infographics for free. Check out Canva if you are looking for a place to get started.

Don’t turn down guest posting opportunities

Refer back to what I said earlier about how blogging on your own website can benefit downloads. Well, you can also get more e-book downloads by writing guest posts.

Guest posts expose your e-book to a new audience. People who read other blogs may not be familiar with your brand and voice. But once they see your guest post, you can get their attention.

Just like with infographics, you’ll be able to get referral links for your guest posts too. You can even have these referrals go straight to the download link.

I see way too many people turn down guest posting opportunities. In fact, more than 40% of bloggers don’t write guest posts at all.

This is a complete missed opportunity. Anytime someone offers you a guest post you should jump on it. Just make sure that their website has the same core values as your brand.

You don’t want to be associated with anyone that contradicts your morals. If nobody is offering you guest posting opportunities, go out and find them on your own.

Websites will be thrilled to offer guest blogs because they get to publish new content without having to do any of the work. This is a win-win scenario for everyone.

Read sections on a live video broadcast

Live videos made the list of my top marketing trends to look for in 2018. This is a great opportunity for you to reach and engage with your audience on social media platforms.

I’d recommend starting with platforms like:

• Facebook Live
• YouTube Live
• Instagram Live

Use whichever platform has the largest social media following. If you’ve got lots of followers on all of these networks, then that’s great. Host live video broadcasts on all of them.

Just make sure that your live stream isn’t boring. You definitely want to read some passages to give people an idea of what they can expect from your book, but that’s not all you should do.

Marketing experts say that live video is a great way to create engagement and attain a deeper interaction with your followers.

So answer questions in real time about your writing process, research, and inspiration for writing the e-book.

You could even give away some free copies to people watching the live stream.

Leverage social media platforms

You want to make sure that you exhaust all of your marketing distribution channels to promote your e-book. We’ve already discussed your website, blog, and email subscription list.

In addition to using social media to broadcast live videos, you’ll also want to take advantage of the other features on these platforms.

Post pictures and videos to get the word out to your followers.

Encourage shares on Facebook and retweets on Twitter. Add a download link to your Instagram bio.

Think about all of the followers that you have on these platforms. Target them before the release. Promote the release day hard. Even after the book is written, keep up your social media marketing strategy to get more downloads.

You can try to work with social media influencers on these platforms as well.

Promote your personal brand

Why should anyone read your e-book?

You need to start promoting your personal brand. Position yourself as an expert on the subject.

Let people know if you have a degree in a specific field or any personal success stories that are relevant to the content of your book.

Answer these questions to help you define your personal brand.

What makes you qualified to write an e-book?

If you can brand yourself properly, it will add credibility to your book. As a result, more people will be interested in hearing what you have to say.

This will lead to more downloads.

Conclusion

Just writing an e-book alone isn’t enough to get downloads.

You’ve got to be proactive and take the proper steps to make sure that people download your e-book.

Start taking pre-orders to build hype and gain exposure before the book is released. Record an audio version to make the book more appealing to people who prefer listening to books.

Blog about it. Use each chapter of your e-book as inspiration for a blog post. You can even take advantage of guest posting opportunities.

Create infographics to drive more traffic to your website. Make sure that your site has a clear CTA on every page with a download link.

Target people who already know who you are. Use social media as a distribution channel and stream live videos to create an authentic interaction with your audience.

Always promote your personal brand so people know that you’re an expert on the topic and qualified to write this book.

If you follow these tips, you won’t have a problem getting tons of downloads for your latest e-book.

What strategies are you using to get more downloads for your new e-book?

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3 Ways to Start an Online Business

I was sitting down to lunch with a long time friend of mine about 2 weeks ago.  This is a friend from high school that no longer lives in the same state as me, but I've seen maybe 3 or…

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My Favorite Time-Saving Social Media Marketing Tools

Staying active on social media is one of the best ways for you to create brand awareness and engage with your audience.

But with so many different social platforms to manage on a daily basis, it can be overwhelming. Sometimes keeping up with all these networks at once can feel like a full-time job.

You have enough on your plate when it comes to running your business. Sometimes, your social media campaigns get pushed toward the bottom of your to-do list.

If you’re not in a position to hire a full-time social media marketing manager, you can use a variety of marketing tools to help you streamline this process.

Those of you who have a social media marketing manager can still take advantage of these tools to help make their job more efficient.

I’ve used my fair share of social media marketing tools over the years. Some were great while others not so much. I want to help you avoid the ones that weren’t efficient.

I took the time to narrow down my favorite social media marketing tools that helped save me a ton of time. My hope is you’ll have the same results using them. 

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is great because it has versatile plan options that can match the size of your business and its needs. If you’re the only one using it and you’ve got no more than 10 social media profiles, it’s only $20 per month to use this tool.

But for larger teams and businesses, it has plans for up to 20 and up to 50 social media profiles that can be managed by multiple team members. Those plans go for $99 and $499 per month, respectively.

Hootsuite helps you schedule all your social media posts across all your accounts.

That way, you can schedule all your posts in one go on all your accounts as opposed to manually posting on all your profiles throughout the day.

Hootsuite allows you to easily organize all of your content. Their content library dashboard is extremely clean and easy to navigate.

Those of you who store your content on the cloud-based platforms, such as Drop Box, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Box, can access those files directly from the Hootsuite dashboard.

If you’re using other apps to help manage your social media accounts, Hootsuite can work with those tools as well. That way, you can manage everything in one place.

The schedule menu clearly displays all your pending content, so it’s easy to monitor. You can view the schedule by day, week, month, or even as a list.

If you have a large team using Hootsuite together, you can assign team leaders to have the final approval of content before it goes live. That way, you’ll catch any mistakes and won’t have to worry about posting unapproved content.

One of the best parts about this social media marketing tool is the analytics reports.

You won’t have to use another third-party platform to measure the reach and engagement of your content. You’ll see the metrics of each post per platform, which can even help determine your social ROI.

Hootsuite also has tools that help monitor your team and keep everyone accountable. You can see which team members are resolving tasks the fastest and which ones need improvement.

As a whole, Hootsuite is worth checking out. They offer a 30-day free trial, so it can’t hurt.

MeetEdgar

If you have problems coming up with new content to post on your social profiles, you may want to consider MeetEdgar as a solution.

This software will recycle old posts when you run out of new ones to make sure your posting queue is never empty.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this is a permanent solution and a strategy you should employ all the time. But with that said, there’s nothing wrong with bringing old posts back to life.

It’s definitely better to recycle old content as opposed to posting nothing at all.

If you’ve been slacking off with creating new content and your posting queue runs dry, you can set up MeetEdgar to share older posts with high engagement statistics.

Even if you’ve got a content library full of new content but don’t want to take the time to decide what order to post them in, the auto-scheduler can choose for you.

Instead of having to download the software and open it every time you want to manage your social media accounts, MeetEdgar has a browser extension, allowing you to access its services from the web.

If you operate a small business and have bigger tasks to worry about than micro-managing your social media accounts on a daily basis, I’d say you’re an ideal candidate for MeetEdgar.

It’s $49 per month, and you’ll get a free month if you enrol in an annual billing cycle.

Buffer

Like most social media management tools, Buffer also allows you to schedule your social media posts from a single platform. But what separates Buffer from the crowd is its mobile application.

I know what it’s like to be constantly on the go. You don’t always have the time to sit in front of your computer to manage your social media accounts.

Even if you’re just scheduling posts for the week, having the option to do this from a mobile app makes things easier and gives you lots of flexibility.

You can access the Buffer app on your smartphone while you’re on the train, bus, subway, or in the back of an Uber. If you’ve got downtime between meetings, it’s much easier to pull out your phone than to grab your computer to do the work.

Buffer provides you with visual reports and analytics that track engagement metrics such as:

• mentions
• likes
• comments
• shares
• retweets
• clicks
• reach.

This service also highlights your top performing posts. You can see which strategy is working the best and craft your future posts in a similar fashion.

With the Buffer RSS feed, it’s really easy for you to publish content from any of your favorite websites with just one click. The platform also supports video and GIF uploading, so you can share different types of content with your followers.

Buffer also has its own image creator. This is a chance for you to let your creative juices flow and come up with original images that make your social posts stand out from the crowd.

Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo differs from the marketing tools we’ve analyzed so far.

The software analyzes social media profiles and connects you with influencers to promote your brand.

If you’ve read my top marketing trends of 2018, you know that micro influencers are on the rise this year. If you’re looking for help in this space, Buzzsumo is a great place to start.

Even if adding influencers to your marketing campaign isn’t part of your marketing strategy right now, Buzzsumo still has lots of great tools to make your social media marketing strategy easier.

It has brand monitoring tools that will alert you with mentions of your company as well as your competitors’ plus any relevant keywords, backlinks, and other domains.

This makes it easy for you to see how you stack up against your biggest competition.

Buzzsumo also searches for relevant to your brand content across the Internet. The software filters information that resonates with your audience to help you stay up to date on the latest trends.

You’ll have access to reports about the content shared the most across all the different social media platforms. You can filter this information by the last 24 hours or other time intervals, going back to the past year.

You can determine which type of content is popular short- and long-term.

Buzzsumo lets you organize popular content by its type. You can look at videos or infographics in addition to images and written posts.

If you’re using some of the other tools I previously discussed, Buzzsumo can be a useful addition to your arsenal.

You can choose from plans ranging from $99 to $300 per month. All plans come with a 7-day free trial, and you’ll get 20% off if you sign up for yearly billing.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is another top choice if you’re looking for one place to manage all your social media profiles.

This platform makes it really easy for you to draft, store, and queue all your social posts. You can see everything organized from the calendar, which serves a visual representation of your schedule.

The dashboard also helps you monitor how your posts are doing. You’ll get to view all the metrics by platform or post.

If you’ve got several team members working together on your social media campaigns, Sprout Social is a great option for you. It’s easy to delegate tasks and choose who gets to approve posts before they go live.

Sprout Social also helps you respond to all of your messages from followers. You won’t have to individually log in to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other profiles to see these messages.

This will help you stay organized and respond to messages in the order they were received, as opposed to responding based on which platform you’re logged in to at the time.

Sprout Social has features that help you monitor hashtags and keywords. You can see the share of the volume of those specific keywords your company has.

You’ll also have access to features specifically designed for building and managing your customer relationships.

Members of your team can make notes about different customers and their social media profiles based on your history and contact with them.

If the same customer contacts you more than once using more than one platform, all their information will be neatly organized in one place.

Oktopost

Oktopost is different from the other tools I’ve discussed so far because it’s specifically designed for B2B companies.

B2B marketers don’t use social media the same way B2C companies do. The type of engagement and response they’re trying to get out of each post is different.

B2B marketers put a strong emphasis on the quality of their lead-generation strategies.

Depending on your business and industry, you may not need to expose your brand to hundreds of thousands of social media profiles. Sometimes, just a handful of new clients per year is enough for a business to be extremely profitable.

Oktopost is great because it helps B2B businesses make sure they’re using the right social platforms effectively to reach their audiences.

You’ll still get the same benefits of posting automation, scheduling, and management you receive with some of the other options I talked about, but you’ll get the analytics geared toward a B2B business.

Conclusion

Effective social media management is imperative for all businesses in every industry.

You just need to make sure you’re using your time wisely while doing that.

The tools I’ve outlined above are great because you can manage all your accounts on one platform. Instead of spending all your time posting, you can schedule your content to get posted automatically.

I tried to include something for everyone here.

If you’re working on multiple social media profiles with a team, you may want to consider platforms such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social.

For those of you who want to work primarily from a mobile application, Buffer is probably your best bet.

Companies prioritizing social influencers and competitor analysis can use Buzzsumo for their social media marketing needs.

Smaller businesses without a ton of new content should lean towards a tool such as MeetEdgar.

I’d recommend Oktopost for B2B social media marketing management.

Whichever platform you decide to choose, I’m sure it will help you save lots of time so you can be more productive.

Which tools does your business use to save time managing your social media marketing campaigns?

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How to Write a Perfect Email Newsletter That Converts

Email newsletters are a great way to stay in contact with your subscribers. I use this strategy for my businesses as well.

But when I consult different companies and analyze their email newsletters, I come across some common problems. They’re not using these emails as a marketing tool.

Just sending a newsletter for the sake of meeting your weekly or monthly requirement is not effective.

Your newsletter is a valuable marketing resource, and it’s time for you to start writing them as such. If you need to improve your existing newsletters, read this post.

This guide is also great for anyone just starting out with newsletters.

If you follow my tips, tricks, and advice based on my personal experience and research, your next newsletter will be a conversion machine.

Here’s what you need to know to make this happen.

Give people a reason to opt in

Let’s take a step back for a minute. For you to get conversions in the first place, you need to have an active list of email subscribers.

The best way to do this is to give them a great reason to opt in. Just saying “sign up for our newsletter” isn’t appealing.

How can you approach this? Value. Pitch people with value. Give them an incentive to sign up. Check out this example from the Lands’ End website:

Customers who sign up for their newsletter will get 25% off their orders. It’s a no-brainer for customers to opt in.

But the value doesn’t stop there. They continue by saying their newsletter subscribers also get access to exclusive offers. This implies they’ll get other discounts in the future as well.

Besides monetary discounts, think about other ways your company can add value to prospective newsletter subscribers.

It depends on your company and your industry, but try to get creative here. For example, an airline could offer priority boarding to customers who subscribe to their newsletter.

You could provide free online seminars or e-book downloads to anyone who signs up for your newsletter. If your company hosts events, you can offer free parking passes or free entry to subscribers.

Just think outside the box. The more people subscribe, the greater your conversions will be.

Stick to your goal

What do you want your newsletter to accomplish?

This should be the first question you ask yourself before you start writing. If you don’t know the answer to this, how will your subscribers know what to do?

Here are some common goals for email newsletters:

• drive sales
• increase social media presence
• download an e-book
• drive traffic to a landing page
• promote a new product or service

There are tons of other goals your company might have. But if you’re struggling, use these to get started in the right direction.

Pick one and go with it. Trying to jam all these into one message is complicated and will confuse your audience.

Here’s a great example of a newsletter with a simple goal from Litmus:

The goal of this newsletter is clearly to increase clicks to improve their engagement rates. Rather than just writing a lengthy article about the pros and cons of single vs. double opt-in landing pages, they give their subscribers an option.

They’ll get different content based on which CTA button gets clicked.

You can use a similar strategy in your newsletter, even if you don’t want to be as direct.

First, introduce your goal with the headline or opening statements. Then, discuss it in greater detail throughout the message by mentioning it once or twice. Finally, end with a strong call to action like in the example above.

Emphasize it. Don’t make it ambiguous. The customer should have a clear direction of what action to take after reading your newsletter.

Craft an enticing subject line

You can’t get conversions from your email newsletter if nobody opens it. Your subject line can make or break the success of this marketing campaign.

Once you understand how to increase open rates with different subject lines, you’ll have a better chance of getting high conversions from your newsletters.

Take a look at this data about how recipients view the subject lines of a message:

As you can see, the subject line can determine whether or not the message gets opened or reported as spam.

How can you entice people to open your newsletter? For starters, make sure your subject lines are not boring. Subject lines such as “March Newsletter” don’t give anyone a reason to open their emails.

Be personal: 82% of marketers report that personalized subject lines lead to increased open rates. Furthermore, 75% of experts say personalized messages drive higher click-through rates.

One of the most common ways to personalize a subject line is by using the recipient’s name.

Another enticing way to encourage opens for your newsletter is a time-sensitive subject line. Come up with a way to create a sense of urgency.

There’s valuable information in your newsletter that needs to be read right away. Breaking news is something your subscribers would want to hear immediately.

According to studies by MailChimp, time-sensitive words in the subject line with the highest impact on open rates are:

• urgent
• breaking
• important
• alert

Use these terms when you’re coming up with the subject line for your newsletter.

Be consistent without annoying your subscribers

When people subscribe to your newsletter, they expect to hear from you on a regular basis. Make sure you deliver the newsletter to your subscribers as promised.

If they signed up for a weekly newsletter, you’d better send them a newsletter once per week. If they signed up for a monthly newsletter, sending them an email three times per year isn’t delivering on your promise.

Slacking off on your consistency will damage the reputation of your brand. Your subscribers won’t be interested in converting because your credibility is lost.

Conversely, people won’t be happy if they are expecting a monthly newsletter but instead get emails from you three times per week. This is annoying and could cause them to unsubscribe or report you as a spammer.

Take a look at the top reasons why subscribers report spam:

Getting too many emails is at the top of this list.

I see this happen to companies all the time. Just because a person gave you permission to send them emails doesn’t mean you can take advantage of that privilege.

Discuss relevant content

As you just saw from the research above, people also unsubscribe from emails if they think the content is irrelevant. It’s important for you to stay on brand and on topic at all times.

For example, let’s say you’ve got a company that manufactures various home goods like couches, coffee tables, and lamps. You shouldn’t be talking about the local weather, politics, or recent sporting events.

It’s irrelevant to your brand, and it’s not what your subscribers want to hear about.

Also, it’s a pretty good idea, in general, to stay away from controversial topics in your newsletter. I’m referring to things like religion, politics, race, and things of that nature, unless, of course, your business is in one of those spaces.

People have a different perception of industries based on the relevancy of their email content:

As you can see, the retail industry leads the way in this category. So if your company is in the entertainment, travel, media, or non-profit sectors, you may want to reassess the topics of your newsletters.

One way to make sure you deliver the most relevant content is by letting your subscribers choose what they want to hear about. They can also decide how often they want to hear from you.

When subscribers are initially signing up to receive your newsletter, let them customize these options. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from Envato Tuts+:

By default, new subscribers receive all emails. But if they want to hear from this brand only once a month, they can unselect the Weekly Digests option.

These subscribers can even decide what type of content they want to hear about. People who want to get newsletters about music and audio may not be interested in code or web design topics.

If you employ this strategy, you won’t have to worry about your subscribers thinking your content is irrelevant.

This creates more work for you because you’ll have to write multiple newsletters each week and month. But it’s worth it because your conversion rates will be much higher for each campaign.

Add visuals to enhance your content

If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you know how much I love using images and other visuals to explain concepts.

While your newsletter isn’t a blog, you can still use the same strategy. You need to understand not everyone will read every word of your content.

The average subscriber only spends 51 seconds reading a newsletter. Furthermore, people only read about 20% of the text on a page.

If you want your message to resonate with your audience, include visuals. Pictures and infographics make it easy for people to scan through your content.

Even if they aren’t reading every word, they can still get a general sense of your message. This relates back to the notion of sticking with a common goal throughout your newsletter.

Take a look at this information about how visuals can impact a reader:

People are visual learners. Using images and videos can help people process and retain information better. Don’t be afraid to add these elements to your newsletter.

Plus, visuals will make your message look a lot more organized. Nobody wants to read giant blocks of text.

Measure your results

The only way to find out whether your newsletter is converting is to take the time to actually measure that.

Whatever email marketing software you’re using should have these analytics tools built directly into the platform. Take advantage of them to see how you’re doing.

Look at things such as:

• open rates
• bounce rates
• click-through rates
• unsubscribes
• forwards

Identify which types of newsletters had the highest conversions. Continue using the same strategies.

If some of your newsletters had terrible conversion rates, you need to understand what went wrong. Did you not have a clear goal? Was the content irrelevant?

Once you figure out why your newsletters aren’t converting, it will be easier for you to make the necessary changes.

But you can do this only if you’re actively tracking the results of each campaign.

Tell a story

As we discussed earlier, people don’t dedicate lots of time to reading the text and reviewing newsletters. You’ve got to come up with ways to keep your audience engaged.

Stories are interesting.

Once you hook your audience with a captivating story, they’ll continue reading it to find out what happens. What story should you tell?

Get creative.

You can tell your story or a story about your company. Again, just make sure it’s relevant. Don’t be boring.

Research shows storytelling helps boost conversions:

It’s also an effective strategy for B2B marketers.

Not all your newsletters should be a story, but it’s definitely a good idea to throw some into the mix from time to time.

Conclusion

Your email newsletters are an effective way to communicate and market to your subscribers. If you write them correctly, you’ll see higher conversion rates.

But you need to get people to opt in to your newsletter in the first place. Give them a reason to sign up.

Before you start writing, make sure you have a clear goal in mind. End the message with a strong call to action reflecting your goal.

Don’t rush when you’re creating a subject line. Use words and phrases that are personalized and create urgency to increase your open rates.

Be consistent and deliver relevant content. Let your subscribers decide how often they want to hear from you and what topics they want to read about.

Use visuals and storytelling tactics to increase your conversions as well.

Make sure you measure the results of each newsletter to see if it was successful.

If you follow these tips, you’ll notice a drastic difference in your newsletter conversion rates.

What strategies are you using to boost conversions from your email newsletters?

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I Just Bought a Mom Blog

So there I was sitting in the hotel “business center”.  Oddly, I work from home and almost never leave my house.  But today, of all days, I didn't have access to my own scanner. I was about to spend $6…

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Top 25 Ideas on How to Make 1000 Dollars Fast

Do you need to know how to make 1000 dollars fast? Maybe your check engine light is on, the mechanic says a new catalytic converter will cost over a grand. You don’t have that kind of money! Or you have…

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How to Build Hype for a New Product Launch

Your company is ready to launch a new product. This is an exciting time for you and everyone else involved.

Depending on your industry and brand, you’ve spent months or potentially even years developing this product.

As you approach the final stages of development, you’re starting to get a bit anxious. I can totally relate to this feeling. You’ve spent so much time, effort, and money on this that you want to make sure that it’s successful.

If your new product isn’t a hit and doesn’t sell, it could be a crushing blow, both financially and psychologically for your brand.

Here’s what you need to realize. Your product may be outstanding, but if you don’t promote the release properly, nobody is going to buy it.

Sure, you may get the occasional sale from someone walking through the aisles of your physical location or browsing online at your ecommerce store, but that’s not enough to drastically increase your revenue.

There’s no reason to wait until your product launches to start promoting it. That way the introduction phase of your product life cycle will have higher sales.

Building hype for your new product will have consumers anticipating the launch. That way, you’ll start to get sales immediately on release day.

If your last product launch wasn’t too successful, you might need some tips on how to improve your strategy the next time around. That’s why I created this guide. It’s also great for anyone who is releasing a new product for the first time.

Here’s the best way to build hype and drive sales.

Identify your market segment

First, you’ve got to figure out who will be using your new product. This isn’t the same thing as identifying the target audience of your brand.

Sure, you already know who your customers are, but will all of your customers be using your new product?

Here’s a really basic and obvious example to show you what I’m talking about. Let’s say you have a clothing brand. You sell a variety of products for both men and women.

The new product that you’re releasing is a sports bra. Obviously, the market segment here is athletic women.

You can develop a customer persona to get more information about this segment of your customer base. Here’s an example of what this looks like.

This is really important for brands that have a diverse line of products. Not every single customer of your will be interested in the new launch.

So it’s a waste of time, money, and resources if you market to everyone and anyone who walks through your doors.

Instead, take advantage of your customer information that you have on file. You may have email lists segmented into certain categories.

Send out messages to the subscribers who fit the description of your customer persona.

Work backward

Think about your end game and start there. It’s an interesting strategy, but it helps everyone on your team get on the same page.

It’s always a great idea to follow the advice of successful companies. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, says that his business employs this strategy for new product launches.

Write a mock press release. Explain exactly what your new product is and why you made it. Talk about the top features, benefits, and differentiation factors.

Keep this description clear, concise, and to the point.

Come up with a potential frequently asked questions list. What kind of problems, inquiries, or instructions would a customer have if they bought the product?

Put yourself in the shoes of a neutral person who has no prior knowledge of the product and how it works. Will they be able to figure it out?

Outline the customer experience. Determine how different people will use the product. Imagine every possible circumstance that the item could be used for.

Next, write your user guide. This should be a step-by-step instruction page that describes everything the customer needs to know about how to set up, use, and troubleshoot the product.

Once all of these steps are outlined, it will make it easier for your company to brand the product and make sure that it’s ready to be marketed accordingly.

Start testing your product

Your new product needs to be tested constantly. It doesn’t matter what it is or what kind of industry you’re in, testing early will improve the final performance.

This statement holds true for both physical products as well as intangible products, such as software.

Testing needs to happen during each phase of development.

Testing early will make your life easier in the long run. But it also has promotional benefits.

If you can get your product into the hands of beta testers and focus group participants, it can start to build hype.

You’re killing two birds with one stone here. First, you’re getting valuable feedback to ensure quality control. Second, you’re getting the word out about the new item.

These testers could be influencers within certain industries. They may have blogs, websites, or connections to people who do as well.

If they talk about their experience on social media, you can start to get free promotion without putting in any effort. You should encourage your testers to do this.

Blog about it

Blogging has exceptional benefits for businesses. Promoting a new product is no exception to this strategy.

Take advantage of your existing blog.

You’ve got to find ways to talk about your new product without sounding too salesy. Your audience knows that you’re biased, so you can acknowledge that.

Say something like, “Obviously, I know I’m biased, but I’ve been working in this industry for a long time. This product is revolutionary and will change the way you do things.”

Talking about the product in your blog will build anticipation for your regular readers. They’re already familiar with your voice and brand, so they make be likely candidates to make a purchase when the item finally gets released.

Take a look at some of the other benefits of blogging.

Blogging about your product will help you generate new leads and get more traffic to your website. These are both ideal scenarios for anyone who is getting ready to launch a new product.

The more traffic to your site increases the chances that you’ll get more sales.

You can also guest blogging as a strategy to talk about your new product. In most cases, this is free advertisement to a new audience.

The website your blogging for benefits because they get new content without having to do any work. You benefit from the exposure. So it’s a win-win for everyone.

Tease your audience

Sometimes the best way to build hype is to be mysterious. Don’t give it all away in your first promotional campaign.

People are curious by nature. If you tell them everything they need to know right away, they don’t have a reason to follow up to get more information.

But if you use teaser promos, it will stimulate their curiosity.

Here’s an example.

In 2017, Sony released the Xperia XZ Premium. This product won the award for the best new smartphone at the 2017 Mobile World Congress.

After winning an award last year, Sony released a teaser video to build anticipation for the 2018 MWC.

The video is 23 seconds long and doesn’t provide too much information. First, it shows and a hand, and then curved lines appear above it.

Then the video displays the date for the 2018 conference. As you can see, Sony released this video at a perfect time. The promo aired one week before the event.

This gets people talking. Are they releasing a new phone? Does it have a curved screen?

People let their imaginations run wild. Now, consumers will keep coming back to see if the brand releases further updates.

Promote your product at a special event

This piece of advice piggybacks off of our last tactic. Big events are a great time to talk about your new product launch.

You’ve got lots of eyes and ears on the event, especially if other companies in your industry are participating.

Events will also have other media outlets attending. So the press can hear about your new product and talk about it on their blogs, TV shows, or podcasts.

All of this is free promotion. It gets the word out there and gives people something to get excited about.

In addition to pitching your product at an industry event or conference, your company can hold especially event that’s only for your products.

Apple does this every year.

They use these keynote events to talk about the technology and features behind all of their newest products before they get released.

During their September 2017, they used this special event as an opportunity to announce six new products.

• iPhone X
• iPhone 8
• Apple Watch Series 3
• Apple TV 4k
• iOS 11
• watchOS 4

As you can see from the list, there is a huge variety between these products. They’ve got new phones, watches, TVs, and operating systems.

Since Apple does this every year, their customers are always ready for the events. The speakers discuss how all of the new products work and highlight the top features.

Then, when the product is finally available for purchase, customers already know what to expect.

Apple is an industry giant. So it’s definitely not a bad idea for you to follow their lead and apply this strategy to your company.

Add a video demonstration to your website

You’ve got to take advantage of videos as a marketing tool. I’m sure you’re using it for other areas of your business, so promoting a new product launch shouldn’t be an exception.

64% of customers make a purchase after seeing a branded video. More than half marketing experts across the world say that video content has the highest ROI compared to other content marketing strategies.

Furthermore, 95% of information gets retained when it’s watched in a video. This is ideal for a new product release.

Since your product isn’t available for purchase yet, you want to make sure that your promotional campaigns are memorable.

Take a look at how Vantage Robotics uses this strategy to promote a new product on their website.

They’ve got video demonstrations for how the product works.

This is very important for certain industries, especially for those of you in technology. If you’re selling a t-shirt, you don’t need to really explain to your customers how it’s used.

But if you’re selling something like an aerial camera that follows people around and records a video, then there is probably a bit of a learning curve.

Video demonstrations help eliminate confusion. This relates back to what we talked about earlier, in terms of writing out your FAQ and user guides ahead of time.

Your video can answer any potential questions. Plus, when people see your product in action, they’ll be excited about the release and lined up to buy it.

Use all of your marketing channels

Don’t just use your website to promote your new product. Take advantage of all of your existing marketing channels.

Exhaust every resource.

Social media is a great place to start building hype. With the option for your followers to like, comment, and share your posts, it’s a perfect way to get even more exposure.

Plus, you’ll be able to get more engagement when you promote your products on social media.

Customers will be able to ask questions and hear back from you.

Don’t think that your marketing efforts need to be restricted to just a couple of channels or some posters inside your physical store locations.

The more marketing channels you use, the greater the exposure will be.

Start taking pre-orders

Why should you wait until your product officially hits the market to start making a profit?

Collecting money for pre-orders is a great way to build hype. Now, customers are invested. Making a purchase early shows them that your product is real and not just a concept.

They’ll also start telling their friends, family, and social media followers about their excitement.

Take a look at how this strategy was used for the DronePhone.

They market this pre-order as a way for consumers to be one of the first people to get this product.

If you’re releasing something that’s groundbreaking or revolutionary, this is a really cool pitch.

Conclusion

Don’t wait until your product is released to start marketing it. Start building hype in the early stages, even when it’s still being developed.

Segment the market within your overall target audience. Test your product and blog about it.

You can use teaser videos to generate curiosity from your customers.

Promote the product at a special event and use video demonstrations to show how it works. Use all of your marketing channels as a promotional method.

Start collecting money with pre-orders.

Once your product is ready for launch, make sure everything is working properly. You don’t want consumers to experience any problems.

Get your sales team ready. Your customer service representatives need to be educated and ready to answer any questions.

Don’t lose momentum. Keep promoting your product hard, even after the release.

If you follow this guide, you’ll have a successful and profitable product launch.

What strategies is your company using to build hype for your newest products?

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