Tips and Tricks for Making Money with Interviews

If you’ve followed Membercon for any length of time, you know Emile and I love to talk about the tactics and strategies that have failed as much as we do about what led to success (maybe more).

We’re constantly tweaking, adjusting, deleting and adding to the emails that are in our autoresponder chain at Aweber. Our email follow-ups have become the single-most important tool we have to bring a prospect in and convert them to paying members of our sites.

A few weeks ago I snuck in a new email at around #6, meaning they received it about two weeks after joining our list. The idea was this: we’ve given them some great content and pointed them to some great resources on our site. Let’s show the subscriber we know what they are feeling and can relate their place in the learning curve. Our sense was that most people who joined our email list for our online trading membership site were relatively new and would appreciate a “we’ve been where you are” type of email that then also invited them to become members and join the community.

Within 3 days I knew we had a problem. Unsubscribe rates doubled for this specific email number and it quickly became the leader as the email that resulted in the most unsubscribes of all the follow-ups for that week.

Part of the unsubscribe issue was that it was the first “all pitch, no content” email in the chain so that accounts for a lot of the unsubscribes. But there were just to many on a percentage basis for that to have been the only reason. But it also genuinely pissed people off. We started getting some nasty email replies – not good (I’ll share a few of them with you in a moment just for kicks).

Here’s the email in full and then I’ll tell you why I think it didn’t work…

Ok, I assume you listened to the interview I sent a few days ago. Let me make a few more assumptions – this time about you: You’re smart. You know you have what it takes to trade well, you just need some good information from someone who knows what to do.

Perhaps you’ve even traded a bit – and lost some and made some. But…you just can’t seem to get consistent – as in month after month of gains. You feel like the market seems to know when you enter a trade – and loves to reverse right after you get in.

When you do get a winning trade, you exit too early or worry that you’ll give it all back if you stay in much longer.

You’ve tried all the “guru” free trials and it hasn’t helped much.

How am I doing so far? How did I know? Because I’m describing myself just a short time ago. Then I decided to talk to a few traders who were consistent.

And it made all the difference. It finally clicked. It’s not hard, it’s not complicated, and it makes perfect sense when you hear these traders describe it.

Sign up now with TraderInterviews.com – I’ve even slashed the price for you:

http://www.TraderInterviews.com/traderinterviews_signup.php

Call me or email me anytime.

All the best,

Tim Bourquin, Co-Founder
Trader Interviews
(direct email): tim@traderinterviews.com
(direct phone): 1-949-348-2590 ext. 15

P.S. How much longer are you going to wait to find the perfect trading service? This is what you’ve been looking for!

http://www.TraderInterviews.com/traderinterviews_signup.php

Our intentions were good. I honestly thought that by describing the state of mind the subscriber was probably in, we would generate goodwill and a few sales from folks who understood that we “got them.” That may have been the case for some people, but what we found out is this:

People don’t like being told how they feel – no matter how right you may be.

I think people said to themselves, “Dude, you’ve emailed me 6 times and you think you know me? You don’t, so don’t assume you do!”

They were right. Even reading it now, I somehow get a flash of “We’re better than you but if you become a member, you can be as good as us.” It’s not something I felt when I wrote it and it definitely wasn’t meant that way, but stepping back I can see it plain as day.

The lesson learned: certainly we can all make assumptions about our subscribers and write emails and offer products that help them achieve whatever goals they have. All the surveying in the world can get you close to the facts, but ultimately you’ll have to make some assumptions to fill in the blanks. But in most cases, stating that fact outright just makes people feel you are taking liberties with the relationship and acting like a know it all.

This may be a perfect case of, “Do it but don’t say you are doing it because no matter how you say it, it won’t come out right.”

And the email replies? Here are a few:

1) “You know what they say about “assume” – it makes an ass out of you and of me!” (of course we’d get that one)
2) “This isn’t me at all actually, and I’m a little annoyed that you think so…”

Plus a few others with colorful language, to say the least.

So obviously that email is now gone from the follow-up chain. We’ll keep testing, tweaking and trying. It’s the only way to improve and hopefully our experience here. You never know which emails will work and which ones won’t until you give them their chance on stage.

email marketing autoresponder chain, Aweber, marketing assumptions