Issac G's Blog

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A little bit earlier in the day today, I happened to be looking at the stats of an email campaign that I’d sent out to my list yesterday, and a co-worker at my day job happened to be looking over my shoulder.

For those who don’t know, I am actually one of those rare few folks in the world that do IM despite having a day job that I’m completely satisfied and happy with. I actually work as a very senior technical developer and marketing advisor for a large online advertising company (which is a nice way of saying that I have the privilege of thinking up IM gimmics and actually building them on my own with management’s blessing [and budget!] which is something that very few marketers get to do). But I’m getting sidetracked (as I often do )

The point is, I was looking at this email campaign’s tracking stats, and noticed out of ~1150 subscribers that I’d sent to, I had a very healthy open rate of 9% and an even healthier clickthrough rate of 6%. (For the newbies out there, email tracking is always “pessimistic” in that the real stats are usually an order of magnitude better than the reported statistics – because email is really really hard to track due to security associated with emails, like spams, phishing attempts, and the likes).

 

So my co-worker (his name’s Michael, but we call him Miko) takes a look, and asks me “Issac, how the heck did you get such a good open rate?” Hmph – once again proves that even the big advertising companies don’t always know the answers better than those of us who go solo. But that’s not the point I was trying to make.

So anyway, Miko looks at the email subject, and immediately starts coming up with a thousand different reasons why it should, or should not, get such a response rate. Because he’s used to 5% open rate on a great email on his campaigns.

The truth is that a big factor is how you treat your list – something that a lot of marketers who get thrown into online marketing don’t immediately grasp. See, while the thousand factors about the email subject were certainly a big factor (I could email crap with a catchy subject line and get great results, or email the holy grail of Internet Marketing with a bad subject and get a 0% open rate), Miko was missing what is, in my opinion, the biggest and most important factor of all.

The “Google Effect”

No, it has nothing to do with GMail. It doesn’t even have to do with the word Google which was in the subject line of the email in question (and I’m personally betting that adding that word upped my open rates by 1.5% alone).

It has to do with what I wrote about a few days ago – the fact that people trust Google to rate people, because Google looks at everything on the Internet and has done so for a long time.

See, Miko didn’t factor in the previous hundred emails that I’ve sent to my list over the past year, and the trust which the quality and quantity of those emails built between my subscriber base and myself. It’s that trust factor which was responsible for doubling both my open rate, and the clickthrough rate. The subject just had to be good enough to not screw that trust rate up (and the good subject certainly didn’t hurt )

When building your list, it’s important to keep in touch with your subscribers on a regular basis. Whether “regular” should be daily, weekly or even monthly is entirely up to you, but you SHOULD keep to your schedule (not to the day, but you get the idea). And don’t abuse you subscribers – they’re your greatet asset, and you want them waiting for your next email… Craving it… Drooling in anticipation of it…

You aren’t going to get that kind of response if every email is “Buy this”, “Buy that”, “Look what just launched – join under me” (well, you actually could as long as there’s some valuable content mixed in the messages along with the blatant sales pitch).

Also, (and I’m surprised how many people just don’t get this), if you’re building a business or marketing list, your subscribers DO NOT want to get daily jokes, email care cards, chain letters with heavenly blessings, or the likes. They have friends and family to send them content like that. If you’re their family or friends, then you shouldn’t need a mailing list, and if you’re not, then your subscribers DON’T CARE.

You SHOULD send them content that they are expecting. You SHOULD send them sales pitches on a regular basis (not EXCLUSIVELY, which is what I was trying to say above, but regularly). You SHOULD make sure that your email is something that YOU would read (if, that is, you weren’t recieving it from yourself of course) before sending it.

By treating your list with the respect it deserves, you’ll get better results – “Do Unto Others What Thou Wouldst Have Others Do Upon Thyself”, and so on and so forth.

Miko left the room with a thoughtful expression (and a lot of food for thought). I hope you do too.

Following up on my earlier post, “Issac Took Over Google“, more than 20 people signed up for absolutely nothing!

As far as I’m concerned, that’s excellent proof of concept for this system, and I’ll be following up with my list to recommend using it.

(Wow! 24 now – there’s NO info, no website, no nothing. Just me ‘n’ Google ‘n’ 24 more people on my list! How cool is that?!?)

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Mwahahaha!  Google is mine!!!!

Seriously, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!  The price tag on this baby is just $50 one time with a recurring $3 monthly payment, and there’s a LOT more you can do beyond that neat trick…

Take a look before the Google Police arrest me!

Signup for the service here.

YES it’s evil, but it’s not going to dissappear and this is going to be an important tool in your arsenal!  Just imagine putting this on all of those clickbank affiliate sites that you never used to be able to convert into your own leads too…  (I’m actually calling this “Website Spam 1.0″ )

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That really is the question, isn’t it?

I had a friend, a guy named Dan, over for lunch over the weekend.  “Dan”, I said, “I’ve finally given in to the peer pressure and started a blog.”  He gave me a sideways look, and said “Cool – but how do you have the time for it?”

I thought about that a bit – and then took the question one step farther.  What am I really out to achieve here?  I mean, I’m not a very prominent member of the blog-o-sphere.  I don’t have time to read other folks’, so how (and why) would I find time to make to write to my own?  And frankly, why blog to begin with?

Yes, there’s the social media marketing element – social proof.  Social proof is important – always has been – and is really the natural extension, in my opinion, of “old school” marketing to new age Internet Marketing.  But (somehow) Internet Marketing has done just fine for 15 years or so BEFORE the “social marketing revolution”, so there’s got to be something more…

I think that what it boils down to is what I like to call “The Google Effect”.  15 years ago, there was no Google, and the internet was represented on “The Search Engines” by what webmasters wanted.  There was no “spider” that “crawled” your website and categorized things for the sake of the general public.  There was the Yahoo! index, and anyone coud add a page to it, and tell Yahoo! how to categorize it and what it was about (ahhh..  we were so naive then…)

These days, everyone trusts Google.  Therefore Google becomes some sort of “trust-meter” (kinda like the social networking, but a very different kind of “proof” than “social proof”).

And that’s where blogs fit in.

Blogs are how people get a lot of content out.  But a website can do that too…  No, the reason for blogs is that Google loves to know every person’s innermost thoughts (as long as such person is willing to publicize it in front of the whole world, which somehow has become the norm of our society), and therefore craves anything that remotely smells like it’s personal.

And if Google’s going to eat it up, a smart marketer is going to place himself and his precious content right there.

So it’s got nothing to do with personal.  It can, maybe (for me) it eventually will, but for now it’s just cold business.  And I’ll continue to make the time for it.  If you’re serious about your online business, but never found the time to do this, I suggest that you bite the bullet and do the same.

Until next time…

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One of the hardest things to do with a new blog is “picking up in the middle”.  You know, when there’s so much going on, how do you just jump in and get started?

So, I’ve been promoting SuccessQuik since it launched in late June, and I’ve honestly been having loads of fun with it.  It’s one of the Things I’ve Been Searching For since the old-school MLM days (I did Agel, and I honestly did Do Life! while I did it, but I digress…)

It’s the perfect online MLM for me.  The product is advertising, the join cost is $10 (suits my budget just fine!).  No autoship (we don’t need it – we can do monthly subscriptions once we’ve had our initial atypical Network Marketing experience has happened, as my mentor Randy Schroeder so aptly put it).  Easy. 

There’s a great system in place – Clint, the guy who started it, knows MLM well enough to supply it, and there’s plenty of room for new leadership, which I’ve already proved myself to provide with a team of over 50 in the first 2 months since launch.  And I’ve been having fun on my jungle expidition while I help pave that system.  The latest part of the path that I’m paving through this particular jungle is a 7-day autoresponder series that I just set up.  Honestly, it’s not about the content – the same content can be found at the website – but rather about the way it’s delivered. 

One lesson every day.

Do this.  Do that.  A will lead to B will lead to C.  It’ simple, and it WORKS!

But you know what, I’m amazed at the number of people who just don’t care.  They put the money in, get the excitement and just ignore everything I have to help them.  I suppose there’s nothing I can do about it, but it hurts just a little bit – just like in old school MLM, when I’d start out with my new prospects, taken them through their first PBRs after their $1,000 investment, and they just wouldn’t do the 3-way calls with me; wouldn’t keep the meetings to the format I suggested.  They just had to do it their way.  None succeeded.  The only ones who did were the ones that surrendered to the system.

I guess that’s one of the reason that online MLM and IM appeal to me so much more – at least I didn’t have to waste the time, energy and gasonline on those who just don’t get it

If you’re curious about SuccessQuik or the Start Guide, check out my latest splash page and give it a try.  (I considered letting anyone sign up for the series, but really: what’s the point in that?  The most you’d gain is swiping my copy, and you can pay $10 if you want it that badly)