Tips and Tricks for Making Money with Interviews

I’ve addressed this issue in a previous post here, but wanted to give you an update.

First, a few definitions for those new to the subject:

Single Opt-In Email Form: the subscriber enters their email address, clicks submit and is then taken straight to the free content or thank you page. They are now subscribers and no further action is needed on their part.

Double Opt-In Email form: the subscriber enters their email address, clicks submit, and is then taken to a page that tells them they need to check the email box they just entered. The email service then sends that email address a confirmation email containing a link that must be clicked in order to join the list. If they don’t click the link, they never get subscribed and never get the free content.

Double opt-ins, while growing your list more slowly (because a certain percentage of subscribers will never click on the confirmation link) result in a cleaner, more responsive list because you don’t acquire bogus email addresses or 3rd or 4th tier web-based email addresses the owner never checks. It also ensures someone isn’t getting subscribed to a list without their permission.

There is a compromise though and it’s the behavior we’ve settled on that works well for our lists.

All of our lists are double-opt in, but the confirmation link in the first email takes the new subscriber directly to the promised content. It’s the most “friction-free” way we know to both confirm the subscriber’s address AND take them to the content in one click.

The trouble with most standard double opt-in strategies is that it adds one unnecessary step to the process and it truly hurts their ability to grow a great email list. The standard Aweber double opt-in process goes like this:

1) User subscribes
2) User gets sent a confirmation email that must be clicked
3) User clicks that confirmation email link and then is told they have to wait again to get content in another email
4) User finally gets email with the link to the content or the content attached (which is email #1 in your auto-responder chain)

That step 4 is what can really kill your list building efforts - eliminate it! Why should your subscriber have to take action and then wait AGAIN to get yet one more email before they get your content?

In my opinion, that’s simply asking too much patience and effort from your subscriber.

Thankfully, the fix is simple. In Aweber, you can specify the page that your user gets taken to once they click the confirmation link. Instead of taking them to a “thank you, now you have to wait again” page, make that URL the link to a page on your website that contains the promised free content.

They will still get your first email in the follow-up series (that likely takes them to that same page) but that’s OK. The user gets to your content one step faster and you get the full benefit of a clean, responsive and double opt-in email list.

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Last week I mentioned we were changing our first email to all our lists to be more direct about the fact that yes, we will be offering paid products occasionally along with our free tips, tricks and content.

Our sense is that while many people understand that joining a list means an occasional sale pitch for the products of the website owner or their partners, many do not – or at least appreciate a direct statement to that effect in the beginning.

In part, the emails now say something similar to this:

Here it is: we’re going to be emailing you ideas and tricks we use but never publish on our blog. And we’ll explain it in a step-by-step way that you’ll be able to understand and use them on your own website right away to make some coin (or euros, pounds, dollars, pesos, etc.).

That’s what makes our list so valuable to subscribers.

But we’re also going to introduce you to products and services we think are top notch and worthy of your attention and dollars – things we’ve bought ourselves.

In other words, we’re going to ask you to buy stuff too.

So if capitalism, grandma’s apple pie, or marketing offends you, you’ll want to find that unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email and put yourself out of your misery right now. Go ahead, we’ll wait….

So are we seeing more people click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of that email? The answer is YES. Not a lot more, but before we implemented the more direct text, very few unsubscribed after the first email. But, interestingly yet not surprisingly, less people are unusbscribing, percentage-wise, on the first sales pitch email that comes around email 6. This is across the board on all our sites.

So we’re just getting rid of non-buyers sooner in the follow-up chain. Which is A-OK by us. If there is no chance they are ever going to buy something then the sooner they are off the list, the better.

This is all based on just 6 days worth of data, but I think it’s encouraging and wanted to update you.

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