Have any of you ever used email marketing to increase the conversion rate of your product?

Let me be CLEAR about something...

I dont mean to sell "other stuff" or to get them to take "other" actions. I mean...

To increase the conversion rate of the ORIGINAL product.

For years Ive heard to much bs and talk about how it takes at least 7 visits for most of your customers to buy from you but I have YET to hear from anyone who has actually TESTED and confirmed a true increase in their conversion rate for the FIRST product they were trying to sell.

I have looked everywhere for data to confirm this and Im very disappointed.

My ideal system of follow up would work like this...

They read my sales letter, they dont buy BUT they sign up for my free email course...THEN after a few weeks of reading my free emails...they decide to buy from me...resulting in an increase in my conversion rate.

An increase that I can TRACK and TEST to gather significant and accurate data.

If you have experienced anything like this then by GOD PLEASE share it with me.

Yes I track which visit they purchase, and there's definitely a lot that don't buy on the first visit. I get them into my marketing funnel and send follow-up emails with a mixture of content and sales messages, and I can trace exactly which of my emails result in the most sales. I've also tried moving them around, changing the day it's delivered, changing the sequence. Done this for a while, and it definitely makes a difference.

It can be tedious, but worth it, IMO.

I also set up these stats by traffic source, so I can see which sources sell when.

For example, here's a breakdown of this month so far for one of my products...

Purchased on:

1st visit: 65 (66.3%)
2nd visit: 13 (13.3%)
3rd visit: 9 (9.2%)
4th visit: 6 (6.1%)
5th visit: 1 (1.0%)
6th visit: 2 (2.0%)
7th visit: 1 (1.0%)
8th visit: 0 (0.0$)
9th visit: 1 (1.0%)

Total Sales for month of May so far: 98
Total sales AFTER the first visit: 33 (33.7%)

So the majority are purchasing on the first visit, but look how many I'd be leaving behind if I didn't have a bigger strategy in place.

Hope that helps.

John

What I try to do in my email follow ups is hit on a different want/need/desire/problem my prospect is having in each message. Focus on ONE, hit it hard, deep, and repeatedly (positioning your product as the savior), then move on to the next message.

What happens is eventually you find the hot button for each individual prospect. Might be message 2 or message 5 or message 7, but if you did your job, there should be an email that makes them think, "He's talking about me."

I go into a LOT more detail in the videos in my sig. Check them out when you get a chance.

Hands down, following up (if done correctly) will increase sales
often DRAMATICALLY.

Its been one of the biggest reasons why we sell so many products.

btw what are you using to track the emails/how are you doing it?

I've got so many messages my ad tracker in 1shopping cart is a mess (and its not really big with features)

Jay btw, your aweber confirm email was in my junkmail box.

Dave--thanks for the heads up.

Picklebreath--I assume you're talking about sale letter conversion increase, correct? Because here's the thing...

The follow up email should have one purpose and one purpose only--to get the reader to click the link in the email that goes back to your sales message. Period. End of story. You're not there to sell them anything--that's why you have a sales letter. You're only there to get them to look at it AGAIN, preferably with a different frame of mind from when they first did (see my previous post).

It really all falls on the letter--if you're getting 3%, a good follow up series will get some more views and should raise conversions. Shoot for 6% (ballpark figure) and then work on improving your letter.

That's why double opt in SUCKS!

That damn confirm email hits the spam folder so much it's
ridiculous.

I hear ya jmo.... kinda defeats the whole purpose of doing a double optin if THIER confirm message cant make it to your inbox.

I just dont get that.

ive got a dedicated ip on 1shopp cart... not sure if its any better or not.

Here's some interesting info about different sales pages, and how they tried to capture an email address before asking for the name, CC#, etc.

Increasing Conversion

Overall, getting the email address first increased the final conversion rate. But if I remember right their average CT rate went down.

mofo, what does double optin have to do with it? if the confirm email hit the junk box, the single optin probably will end up there as well unless it is the copy of the double optin email that is causing it.

big jason