3 tools to improve your conversions

Automation
Email marketing
List building
Selling Products and Services
Success
1Comments

online-business-increase-conversions-1During my 16+ years online, I’ve been lax in tracking and testing conversions, I admit. But it’s SO important to know your conversion on your opt-in and sales pages as well as your emails. And especially to test variations to see which one works best.

Why? When you have knowledge, you can make changes that improve your conversion. And believe me, all of the highly successful marketers test. Why not you?

So let’s talk about tracking and testing for conversion.

Imagine…

Testing 2 versions of an opt-in page for your free offer and discovering that one of them gives you more subscribers!

Testing 2 versions of a sales page and finding out that one results in more sales!

Testing emails — the subject or the content — and finding that one gets more opens and more clicks!

What would that knowledge mean to you?

There’s a tool for that…

I’ve tested some tools over the years but found them either too complicated or expensive. I think I’ve finally found a set of 4 tools that will give me the information I need to improve my conversions, so I want to share them with you and how I’m using them.

online-business-increase-conversions-2Google Analytics

Google Analytics gives you so much information you might be overwhelmed, but here are some of the possibilities:

  • Where your visitors come from and how they find you
  • Which pages/posts get the most traffic
  • What search terms people use to find your website
  • The conversion of an opt-in or sales page — to get this, you set Goals

Read More

by Ellen Finkelstein

34 essential software, tools, and plug-ins I use for my online business

Automation
Web technology
WordPress/blogging
5Comments

online-marketing-tools-plugins-1

When you have an online business, you collect software, tools, and plug-ins that make your business run more smoothly. Over the years, I’ve tried out a LOT of tools. I’m always trying something new and dropping something else.

When you first start out, the options can be overwhelming. In fact, even after you’ve been in business a while, that doesn’t change. It can be a BIG help to get recommendations from others.

In fact, I recommend that you don’t jump for each new “bright, shiny object” that comes out, even under the threat (and sometimes it seems like that)  that the price will go up. I’ve certainly bought products that I didn’t use. It’s better to wait and see what other people think of the software. Let them test for you–especially if it’s expensive!

If you have a question about specific software, ask in the Comments below. If I don’t know the answer, maybe someone else will read your question and be able to answer it!

Here’s my list. Read More

by Ellen Finkelstein

Create product autoresponders to sell more

Automation
Email marketing
Selling Products and Services
3Comments

online-business-product-autoresponders-1You probably know what autoresponders are — emails that you set up in advance to be sent out automatically. Most marketers set up autoresponders after a person subscribes to their email list. You can create any number of emails. You might set up a series of 5-10 or even more. I’ve written about autoresponders in my blog post, “How to automate an Internet business: Part I-Autoresponders.

You set up autoresponders in your email service.

Another type of autoresponder

But another type of autoresponder is sent out automatically when a person buys one of your products.You set up this type of autoresponder in your shopping cart or membership site. Some email services integrate with shopping carts to let you set up a product autoresponder in your email service.

This type of autoresponder is different because the topics are different. Here are some examples: Read More

by Ellen Finkelstein

Who are you? What do you need to be successful?

Automation
Social Media
Success
0Comments

As my list grows, I periodically do a survey to find out who you are and what you need. Here are the results of the 2014 survey.

online-business-survey-success-obstacles-2Who you are

80% of you are beginner/intermediate
20% of you are intermediate/advanced

75% of you have a job and do online marketing part time
25% of you have online marketing as your full-time business

What’s important to you

The figures below show how many of you said that each item was very or somewhat important to you. Read More

by Ellen Finkelstein

6 quick ways to increase your sales right now

Affiliate marketing
Automation
Email marketing
Selling Products and Services
0Comments

online-business-6-ways-increase-income-now-1When you have an online business there are many “touch points” and you can use them to increase sales. You can use these touch points to make offers and automate the process of marketing your products.

Here are 6 ways that you can increase your sales right now.

  1. When people subscribe, they see a page that tells them to look for the confirmation email. You can usually customize that page. Add an offer to a low-priced product there, with a discount.
  2. After people confirm (the double opt-in procedure), they may again be directed to a page . That page will usually have the link to your free download. Add an offer there as well.
  3. If you deliver your free download via an email, add an offer there, too.
  4. Your autoresponders can also include product offers. For example, on one of my websites, I offer 5 tips in 5 autoresponders, spread out over 10 days. Each tip comes from a different product and I offer a discount for that product right there in the email. I’d start with a low-priced product. I’ve seen websites that go from subscribing me right to offering a $497 product and it feels pretty uncomfortable. You can go to more expensive products in later autoresponders.
  5. When you sell a product, include a free offer for another product — one that would be a logical next step. You can bundle (zip) the product with other documents that make the offer. You can also include an offer within the product. For example, the last page of an e-book can provide a discount code for another product.
  6. Your offer doesn’t have to be for your product if you don’t have many. You can include affiliate links to products that others sell.

Know all of your touch points

Make a diagram of how a person signs up for your email list and gets your free download plus autoresponders and product sales. You might find more places where you can make offers.

Do you have other ideas for inserting offers at touch points? Leave a comment!

by Ellen Finkelstein