I grabbed my iPhone and recorded a quick video for you in my house in Melbourne. No professional microphone, no professional lighting, just a little bit of post-production editing to keep things interesting.
In this less than 5-minute video I talk about the subject I have spent the last twelve months thoroughly studying. I’ll explain more after you watch this…
It’s funny how things change yet stay the same.
Back in the mid 2000s when I began studying email marketing and internet marketing in general, I often heard about the need to segment your list.
At that stage I had only just begun my first email newsletter about blog traffic tips, connected to this blog.
Back then, like most people, I would send broadcast messages to my entire list, often sharing more free information from my blog or a podcast interview, or promoting an affiliate product.
I did make one smart decision – I wrote an “email gauntlet” – an autoresponder series that was designed to provide education as a presell to my Blog Mastermind program. It took me over a year to do it, but I ended up with 50 quality email newsletters about blogging, which you can still find here in my newsletter archives.
That gauntlet series was responsible for hundreds of people joining my program over the years. It meant I had steady cash-flow because every week a few people would join my course thanks to the email sequence so I didn’t need to keep doing launch campaigns.
I did eventually retire that email sequence and close down Blog Mastermind (for renovations). Since then my newsletter has been only broadcasts to everyone, with the occasional bit of segmentation so I don’t annoy people with promotions for a launch they are not interested in.
Sending Every Email To Everybody Is A Mistake
As I mention in the video, like most people I have sent broadcast messages to my entire email list regardless of what that email was about.
That means I might send out a link to my latest podcast, or to my blog post, or a link to a video from someone who is launching a new product. The subjects are quite broad, from traffic, to business opportunities, to mindset to product creation.
This I am pretty sure is what the great majority of bloggers who have email lists do. We send broadcasts to everyone on our lists.
I’ve known about segmentation since all the way back when I first started. However I never totally took on the concept properly because I felt it was limiting my results.
I noticed if I send my newsletters to everyone, then naturally I reach more people based on the total number of email opens and links clicked in my statistics. Every time I did a segmented email only to a proportion of my list (usually about 25% of the total), I did not have nearly as many people open and click my messages. Of course the actual click through rate and open rate did increase (usually about double or triple my normal numbers) because I was only sending to a segment of my list who had showed interest in previous similar content I had sent.
I figured I should send my messages to everyone because that way I reach the maximum amount of people.
The problem with this is it is short sighted.
While I might reach more people, I wasn’t factoring in all the people I was sending a message to who had no interest in that subject.
If a person receives content they have no interest in over and over, they will stop paying attention. Do it often enough, and they will unsubscribe.
In other words, I was damaging the engagement I have with the majority of my newsletter subscribers just to reach a few hundred more people who might click the link.
Deleting Unresponsive Subscribers
About two years ago when my AWeber bills were getting too huge because I had over 90,000 subscribers I decided to do a cull of the unresponsive email addresses.
Email newsletters naturally have some attrition. People move on or no longer need what you have or they change email accounts. I can’t correlate things of course, but I’m pretty sure a good chunk of my unresponsive subscribers would have become so because they simply were not getting the information they wanted.
They might have signed up with me for information about blogging or membership sites, but I kept sending them podcast interviews with other entrepreneurs or perhaps links to articles I had written about mindset or productivity.
There is SOME connection between these things of course, but I wasn’t exactly matching the reason why they signed up to the content I was sending them. Initially I did, but after that the broadcasts they received were quit broad in subject matter.
Like I said I can’t correlate this, but it makes sense to me. I’m pretty confident that when I did the first mass newsletter cull, dropping my list from over 90,000 to less than half of that at around 40,000 subscribers, it would not have been so significant if my email marketing strategy was more tailored – more segmented over the last few years.
I then did another similar process to “clean” my list as it is called, when I moved from AWeber to Ontraport.
I figured I would start fresh with Ontraport and focus on only the very active people on my newsletter. This time I cut anyone who had not responded in over a year. This left me with about 17,500 subscribers.
Interestingly my total number of opens and clicks in my newsletters barely dropped, so I really was cutting the inactive or “dead” emails doing this process.
Segmentation Begins In Ernest
This year I began a true segmentation process. I spent most of last year planning things out and laying the foundation. I’ve also consumed a ton of information about email marketing and product funnels since I want to get this right from day one.
It will take a while to set everything up, but I am excited about the process because it means I can provide a better quality of information to people who actually want it.
This change makes things a whole lot easier for me strategically too because I know exactly what to write about and what to teach because I have a much more narrow focus for each segment. It’s like back when I had my first email gauntlet series, but this time even more focused and rather than just one gauntlet, I will have many smaller hyper-focused gauntlets.
The changes have already started. Most of the newsletters I sent so far in 2014 have been my latest podcast interviews. If you are on my newsletter you will only receive notice of my latest podcast if you showed interest in previous emails about my podcasts. If you didn’t you are not receiving the emails.
The rest of the fruits of these changes you will see over the coming months. Look out for some very focused content and also a survey coming to you soon, so I can learn more about what you are trying to do and make sure I only send you the information you need to solve your specific problems.
Talk to you soon,
Yaro
P.S. Did you see the outtake in the video?
Former blog masterminder here, I unsubbed from your list at some point because you sent out a broadcast where you were implying that I was costing you money and I should feel bad for supposedly not reading your stuff (you shouldn’t trust all your analytics). Well, now I still pay attention to your RSS feeds occasionally.
But it does bring up an interesting point. Creating engagement with email subscribers still has lots of room for improvement. I think transactional emails will become more and more important. I think there’s lots of opportunities there to create the tools around that and engage with people in a more personalized way. And with personalized I don’t mean creating false sense of connection like many companies do.
Rather personalized in the sense of person-specific, tailored to a persons intent, recent actions and interest. It’s a great way to differentiate because not a lot of people are going to take the time to do that kind of stuff well, if at all.
Hi Peter,
I don’t remember writing an email where I said you were costing me money and should feel bad for not reading my stuff. I may have said something like “if my newsletter is not helping you, then unsubscribe, that is better for both of us”, I have written emails like that before, although I realise everything is open to interpretation so maybe we are talking about the same thing.
Regardless, I am glad to see you still follow my blog enough to leave this comment. Hopefully if you rejoin my newsletter it will be more specific to your needs and will remain subscribed.
I do have a question for you – since you are a previous Blog Mastermind member, I am curious what you thought of the program and what you think would make it better? I am planning on re-creating a new version this year so any feedback you have for me would help.
Thank you!
Yaro
Hi Yaro,
To answer your question:
That was a very long time ago. At the time I quit because of lack of funds and I didn’t have enough reason to stick. I think the biggest benefit a member can get is being part of community where other members are invested in each others success. I think that would encourage people to commit more to creating content for their blogs. I don’t think I got that sense of involvement when I was signed up and that’s the one thing I think would have made the biggest difference. I’m just one data point though.
I think, like many other folks, the appeal of information – aka blogging secrets – for blogging profits is met with more skepticism. I imagine newcomers don’t feel the same, but now I’d be more inclined to be sold on community benefits rather than claims such as making a certain figure for a certain amount of hours. It’s not that I don’t think the claims aren’t possible, I just don’t think it’s representative of the average experience.
ps. Your newsletter I was referring to stated this:
“This needs to be a two-way street – I give you value, you enjoy it – and we build a relationship. If you are not interested, it’s best we go our separate ways.”
It wasn’t a very flattering thing to say to your subscribers (especially the ones that pay attention to your newsletters).
Thanks for the feedback Peter – that’s really interesting to hear. Community is a powerful aspect of training programs, and like you said, often the reason why people stick with a program.
When I buy programs – and I’ve just spent $1,000 on a course – the community aspect isn’t as important as the information. In fact the most important thing for me lately is finding the information in audio format so I can quickly zip through it on my smartphone and find the bits relevant to me.
Like you said, there are various data points for feedback on this subject, and I appreciate yours.
And in regards to the PS quote from my newsletter, I certainly do remember writing that. I was trying to make an impact. Perhaps I could have used less forceful language. Sometimes it depends on the mood I am in!
I apologise if you felt offended, that wasn’t my intention, especially if you still found my newsletter valuable at the time.
Yaro
Actually, I remember that newsletter vividly, and I was shocked to read the “tone” (I’ve been reading your site since 2007 when you had long crazy hair), but your mother had just passed away a few months earlier and I interpreted it as some “angry moments”. I didn’t unsubscribe because I always open the newsletters aka I find value in the newsletters.
I liked the direct approach of your two way street comment.
I’m thinking business, don’t need to be coddled.
Yaro,
I’d be interested to read more about your experience with Ontraport and your opinion of it. It looks really powerful if it’s used well.
Oh Marc I can tell you so many things about Ontraport now and I’ve only just really started to use it. It’s been a learning curve, but I have to say I feel quite empowered by the potential.
The big challenge ahead of me is email writing. I have a few hundred emails to write over the coming months, but at least I know how to use Ontraport to get the most out of it!
Is there a particular part of Ontraport you want to know about or just general feedback?
I’m mostly just interested in general feedback, so it’s good to hear that you’re happy with it. I think something that would be interesting would be to see a case study of a site that is using Ontraport and how the different features and functionalities are being utilized.
Same message broadcasting of any type such as television, radio, print, fax, or email loses its effectiveness with enough time. The target market changes and moves on.
While advertising to the make money blogging market may no longer be effective, one can reinvent themselves and target the make money podcasting market right?
Segmenting is a valid strategy though.
Great point Ho. I have a hope that with the advent of digital TV the advertising becomes much more targeted. At the moment it feels like TV is just full of remnant ad fill – ads about anything just to fill space. I really don’t care about toilet products or feminine hygiene products.
As for the make money blogging market – I think it’s still pretty strong, you just don’t go in there as yet another make money blogger talking about the same thing.
You might focus on blogging specifically for doctors, or blogging but focus all your efforts on being the adsense expert of blog monetisation, or how you can use just facebook ads with a blog to make money – specific points of differentiation and not another generalist.
Yaro
How are you able to see if someone opened your newsletter?
Most email autoresponder systems will show you open rates per email if you send HTML messages. What system are you using Gary?
Yaro
This is way beyond where I am presently at with my blog but I can see the logic behind it very well and agree that it should make a difference. I’m also happy to learn about Ontraport. It would be interesting to read a review of it compared to Aweber once you’ve had a chance to really use it for a while. Thank you for this information.
Why is this beyond you Kathy? You can do it with a blog and a newsletter running with Aweber. Just make sure you look at your newsletter open and click through numbers and then get a bit more particular and specific with what you send in your newsletter.
Yaro
Do you also segment your list by buyers and non-buyers?
Yes of course, that’s the very basic first level of segmentation to begin with. I segment by what type of product they buy too.
I haven’t segmented my list at all, and I wonder if I’m too late in the game. I’ve been growing my list for one of my sites almost two years now. I’m using Aweber so it’s fairly straight-forward but I just haven’t taken the time. Your video has given me a little kick to get going in that direction. Thanks 🙂
It’s never too late – just start with a survey now and use that data to send more targeted messages.
Yaro
I don’t know if this includes everybody, for example one of my blogs is about making money online without paying out fees, surely everyone who joins my list is interested in making money online without paying fees?
I’m not sure what you mean when you say making money online without paying fees? Do you mean not paying for hosting or internet service or a domain name or a newsletter autoresponder?
Yaro –
I love your stuff and your honesty.
Lots of other guys pretend to be “Billy Badass” and won’t admit to drops in traffic, etc. I wonder what really caused the drop?
Anyway, keep on writing from your heart. We’re reading.
Hi Paula,
Thanks, I appreciate that. I have to admit it’s hard to stand up here and be a teacher of blogging when your own blog was going backwards.
Of course it forced me to really hustle and learn a lot to get the things back, so that is a good thing.
I have figured out why I believe my traffic dropped and how I got it back, most of which I explained in a detailed post to my EJ Insider Coaching members inside the community forum. It’s too long a story to share here.
Although to be fair I only have some solid assumptions, not facts, because at the end of the day we are talking about Google and they like keeping things a secret.
Yaro,
We spoke last year at a networking event in Brissy and I mentined how your course had put me on a path to start my own digital marketing business.
I joined Blogging Mastermind in 2009 and invested quite a bit of time on your intensive training and creating my personal blog (which was all over the place due to my varied interests).
Although the blog never eventuated into a real money maker, the skills I learned about creating content online and SEO put me on a path to start my own business as an SEO/Digital marketing consultant.
I’m now creating content for clients as my primary income and have had some great success with getting cients both ranked and getting leads/sales from their business blogs.
I find it interesting to see you have now come around full circle and hope your future members/students will undertake your redeveloped courses with an open mind – you never know where a $497 course will lead you…
Regarding segmentation, I have 2 clients where we are doing exactly that – marketing very differenty to customers versus leads – and seem to be getting some good success in getting the leads changed over to customers, then upselling customers on related products.
Cheers
Curtis
Hi Curtis,
I remember our conversation – I appreciated hearing it. Even if you didn’t realise a profitable blog it sent you down a path towards a profitable business of your own that you enjoy, and that’s ultimately the main purpose everything I teach.
I’d love to hear more about how you are doing segmentation – are you using AWeber and using different lists for different groups?
Yaro
Hi Yaro
Condolences to you and your family. Wishing you and your family the strength to see it through the difficult times.
As fellow entrepreneur, you know that when you give, you have to get back. And you have paid your dues, which I believe will give you a return. You’ve been there before, so you know how to get there again.
The hallmark of a serious and true entrepreneur is that we don’t give up, no matter what challenges we face!
Hang on in there, bro…
And maybe link up with me…
Kindset
Jurgen
http://www.JurgenHomola.com
Thank you Jurgen – it was over a year ago now, and while I doubt the feeling of sadness will ever lift (as others have said to me about their own loss of family), life moves on. I know my mother would want me not to dwell on her passing, so I do my best!
I’m new to your ‘list’ so am interested to see how you end up ‘segmenting’ me based on my interactions….
From what I’ve read on other sites, you still have quite a bit of respect amongst the podcasters such at Lewis Howes and Pat Flynn so I imagine if you decide to really focus again, that you will succeed in growing your business well beyond what it used to be.
All the best.
Hi Brian,
Welcome to my newsletter! You do make segmenting sound a little clinical…I prefer to call it to getting to know each other better 😉
The first step in the getting to know you process is coming next week when I send out a few questions. I’m looking forward to learning about what my audience is trying to do and what specific topics they want to hear about the most.
Lewis and Pat are both amazing online entrepreneurs, especially what they have achieved with their podcasts recently.
Talk to you soon!
Yaro
One thing to keep in mind is that opens are often tracked by having a 1×1 jpg file embedded in the email. If someone has set their email client to block images by default, or if they’re reading the non-html version, it won’t count as an open unless they click on a link.
I think it is pretty rare, but I still block images by default.
I’ve seen some people send a message asking those who want to stay on the list to click on a link or reply to the email. They only send it to those who are marked as not having opened an email in a while, not the whole list.
Yes that is true Bill, it is a hit and miss process.
I actively delete the entries in my database if the person has set their mailing status to “no”, which means they never confirmed their optin or they clicked the unsubscribe link in an email. These people I know for sure are not active anymore.
My email system has also an active re-engagement process that automatically chases up people who appear to be inactive for a year (based on not opening any emails or clicking any links, which like you said might not always be 100% accurate). It will send them a series of emails asking them to click a link in the email to show they are still interested. If they do not, their status is set to NO and I will delete them.
I feel fairly confident this will keep the interested people active and remove those who are not.
Hi, Yaro – Welcome back to the blogosphere. I’m another Blog Mastermind alumnus from 2008. I can’t tell you I’m one of your amazing success stories with big numbers and crazy riches, except I’m still here while a lotta bloggers from back in the day aren’t.
Your course taught me good skills, helped me open doors and introduced me to some fascinating people, some of whom I consider friends. So, thank you.
I’ve always noticed a segmentation in my blog’s readership by who’s been commenting on which posts. For example, people who are into horse racing aren’t liable to comment on my equestrian travel posts. I’m so grateful they seem to lurk until they find something they like.
I do miss the Blog Mastermind Private Member’s forum because I depended on being able to pop in and ask questions. Plus, I also enjoyed cheering on the newbie bloggers who were both so nervous and so excited.
So, thanks again.
Hi Rhonda,
It is good to hear from another Blog Mastermind member! I really do appreciate hearing from people who went through my programs, especially because it makes you appear less like just a number and instead a real person.
You are quite right, people who leave comments are definitely in a different segment, a more engaged segment. You could even identify people based on the type of comment they leave, although that’s taking things to a very granular level.
You will be happy to hear that there is a new members forum – it is called the EJ Insider and right now there are 100 charter members in there whom I communicate with each day. They were invited in at the start of this year on a trial basis. Only people who bought one of my e-guides or my interviews club last year received the invite though.
I’m opening up the EJ Insider coaching community as an option now to anyone who purchases my current programs as an optional extra. I’ll no doubt offer it with the reboot of Blog Mastermind as well, and probably as a standalone option too.
Would you be interested in joining us now? I’d love to have a Blog Mastermind Alumni in there. I’m using the Ning platform to run it, which I think is great and very clean. It is easier to use than old forums I believe.
Send me an email – yaro@blogmastermind.com if you want to join up.
Yaro
Do you think its better to make the effort and start with ontraport or just do aweber …….
and about your blog trafic goin down i think the problem was you had less focus on e-j , but your coming back, like that thankx for the post, and keep it goin you have a great blog …….
Hi Isaac,
That’s a question that can only be answered by what your current situation is. If I was just new to having a blog and newsletter I would start with AWeber now. If I already had some familiarity with these tools and I was planning to create a more complex product funnel, I would go with Ontraport now.
What situation are you in?
Yaro
worth reading by line Yaro.
finally it made me realize what i was doing wrong, and thanks to you, this made me realize earlier – to get rid the dead emails. im paying the email service provider for nothing.
it’s time to do what you’re doing. thanks Yaro.
I’m happy to help you save some money Kevin!
Hi Yaro,
Glad to see you back and seemingly rejuvenated. I have been a follower of your blog and podcast, but last year, I did feel that something was lacking, some sort of energy. Even your newsletters stopped coming.
Everyone, goes through dark times, even successful people like you. Losing someone very special can do that. I am glad to see you back!
All the best,
Melissa
Hi Melissa,
Thank you for your support. I did send newsletters. The most I went was about two to three weeks without one. Perhaps you didn’t respond to some of them and hence I stopped sending you that type of newsletter.
For example, during the last few weeks I have been sending out emails about my new podcast interviews, but only to the 5,000 or so people on my email list who show interest. If you never showed interest in my podcast emails I stopped sending them to you.
Yaro
Hey Yaro–thanks for sharing our experience and general stats about the changes. It really helps us 🙂 BTW the Ontraport image links to https://yaro.blog/ontraport/ which is a 404.
Link fixed, thanks for the heads up!
Hi Yaro,
Thanks for bringing this up. It matches one of my current frustrations and I view this as an opportunity to give you some ‘client-side insights’.
I have two small children and a household to run. While I do want to learn effective strategies related to running a business online, I have limited time. This forces me to be selective with the contents of my inbox.
I currently follow 6 to 8 blogs, meaning every day I get several emails from the authors. And I’m notice some patterns that disturb me:
– Many emails just contain a link to a video which lasts from 2 to 5 minutes. Short video’s, you may think, however they still feel long to me. In many instances what the authors say in them could be summarized in a couple of bullet points. Other times it is just a sales pitch for some product or program. This makes me feel like I lost my time, so I’ve stopped opening video’s (I haven’t watched yours either, sorry) and I’m about to ‘prune’ my lists as well.
– In my inbox there are plenty of messages with titles as “The ONE secret to productivity”, “5 mistakes to avoid when blogging”, “10 strategies to a million-dollar-blog” and the like. At the beginning I’d open all of these messages because I would be afraid to miss something terribly important. But they set expectations really high and then when you open them it is often disappointing. As a result I’ve developed a feeling of mistrust.
I consider the video’s “nice to have”: it like to see and hear who is producing the content, I like it when the author interviews someone interesting and I’m ready to watch long ones (hour-long even) if the content inside is the sort that you produce once a year.
Incidentally I prefer audio files to video’s, specially if I can download them and listen to them when I’m on the go.
And I just adore plain, written blog posts.
I also like the possibility of being able to judge quickly whether a post is ‘just’ a nugget of useful information. I will not unfollow someone if they produce less than awesome content. But I will if I get emails every day or every two days to promote this content as if it were the cure to cancer and moreover in a format I dislike.
My fifty-cent. I hope it was useful.
Best,
Linda
Linda, we are very similar!
I too find video way too “slow” for consumption. The only videos I watch I take with me on my phone and play the audio at 2xspeed. These videos are from courses that I pay for, so highly focused about specific things, not just random tips.
I prefer audio for on the go study, and text scanning for when using the internet at home. I think we are the same there.
I also only subscribe to a very small handful of email newsletters. They are mostly my friends or the very targeted specialists who focus on the subjects I am focused on right now.
The ideas you surface here very much reflect some of the changes I am making and I see as changes all bloggers need to adhere to if you want to keep people engaged in your work. You need to be a specialist, you need to have content that is focused and sequential and you need to focus on your best medium of distribution for your best ideas.
I’ll have more to say about this in the coming months for sure, which I hope you will be around to listen to still 🙂
Yaro
Yaro,
My condolences for the loss of your mum – nothing can fill the void of losing a parent or someone very close, and it takes a long time to regain your normal enhusiasm and zest for life.
I too lost my mother just 4 wks ago, and have cared for her full time in the past 4 months.
We had time to prepare, just could not believe it was happening.
As for your business – YOU ARE YOUR BUSINESS – you are the person who responds individually to us, who cares enough to advise and inspire us, that is the most important part of your business – developing that trust and rapport.
The personal responses to me were always appreciated and so valuable.
Your honesty, integrity, passion and intelligence is WHY people stay on your list – even if they want to purchase your product and can’t, because they simply can’t afford to.
possible solution . ?
BE KNOWN as the CARING CURATOR of the honest step by step PROCESS:
This paying for subscribers with autoresponders is a problem – perhaps you could introduce a small monthly fee – a membership for those that want to be on your list longer than 6 months, for that they get STEP BY STEP training.
Really welcome the new subscribers, let them know their free time with you is valuable for them, and you are doing your best to provide an introductory step by step training in that 6 month period of time.
Then they must decide if they want to stay and learn more- in other words- after looking at the amount of work and effort it will take (2-3 yrs), do they want to go that next step? – are they serious about wanting to make it online?
( I think these become the dead subscribers – too lazy to unsubscribe – scared if they do you may come up with the 1 push secret to internet millions.)
1st 6 mnths free – where you introduce the concepts – give an overview of the industry, if they wish to stay on the list beyond that, they have to pay.
The FREE trng is all onsite, they can download MP3’s, slides, pdf’s and MP4’s within that 6 months only.
MEMBERSHIPS AT 3 LEVELS:- Password
Level 1 – 12 months Beginner training step by step – say $15 month, can only
stay at beginner level for a max 18 months.
Level 2 – 12 months Intermediate trng – $0 – $5000 – say $30 month, can only stay at intermediate level for a max of 18 months – if have done all trng and reached $5000 per month income prior to 12 months can move to L3.
Level 3 – 12 month Advanced trng for those earning min $5000 mnth who want to scale and double their business – $5000 – $10,000 – say $50 m. They can stay at this level indefinitely.
NB: At Levels 2 & 3 also bring in guest presenters JV’s/Affiliates specifically for intermediate and advanced training.
You will make extra $$, they will pay more – you keep your Aff / JV relationships and everyone can access what they need, and survive financially.
Thereafter you could have Private Mentors/Mastermind groups at much higher price – but those people are by application only, they will be people you wish to promote as JVs of the future to those coming up from under them.
You train them to present at Guru level.
You want newbies to be tuned in to you only – for 1st 12 months to build loyalty to the max, where they want to stay for the advanced training and exposure to the other guys they can trust.
If could have found someone who provided anything like the above on line I would have purchased it.
WHY?:
Because- At Level 1 the pricepoint is low, when I / you are not making any $$.
Level 2 pricepoint reasonable when I / you are moving toward making $$. Level 3 more than fair when you are covering I monthly income and it allows you to purchase additional training – ensuring you can test different income avenues and your trng provider is also being rewarded making some JV $$$.
ITS WIN WIN WIN . .
You will get the best of the best JV partners because your list will be gteed, your people more than happy to pay for additional training and will auto trust the people you present to them.
Other Gurus will wonder what the heck is going on – because you are walking the talk . .
You are ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS – don’t underestimate that, you know and present ONLY GOOD GUYS on your blog too.
This is why I remain on your list – I trust and appreciate all you do.
I READ YOURS because – you only write when you have something worthwhile to say or share for OUR BENEFIT.
Plus you wear your heart on your sleeve, you are vulnerable – this makes you a worthy friend online – trust comes to mind again.
There are many ways of being of service online, the trick is:-
A Be true to yourself and enjoy what you do = remain passionate and inspiring.
B Provide service and friendship to prove your worth (6 mnths Free)
C Provide paid trng at price points everyone can afford – to remain viable.
D Provide advice and introductions to trustworthy partners with expertise in other areas, diligently – as you are trusted implicitly.
At the end of the day we are all wanting to be led by someone who cares – who has done that before us successfully, doesn’t matter if they have fallen off the track what matters is they get going again and share their mistakes with us.
I know you know these things, most who have been around the space more than a couple of years know this too – thing is very few are doing any of those things, some do some, most get lost I think because there are just far too many distractions- mostly from other Guru’s – lol.
Thank you for being that caring, honest and open individual, we are all the better for your sharing, we will all remember this when we stumble, hopefully before we fall.
I know all who can, will support your training at price points they can afford once you have nutted your new direction.
Kind regards, jade
Jade – that was a massive comment! You have a lot to contribute on this subject.
I am sorry to hear about your loss. I spent two years going to hospital almost every day caring for my mother. It was a horrible experience, but a lovely one at times too. I miss my mother every day, although I have had one “strange” benefit come from her passing – I don’t fear my own death as much as I did, as I will be going to wherever she went.
In terms of my business, you outline a lot of ideas there that are certainly a big part of what I do. The beautiful thing about blogging – genuine blogging – is you get to express your true self and be rewarded for it.
Just like here in this post I can write about how my own blog was not doing so well, and while that might look bad on me as a teacher of successful blogging, it actually enhances my relationship with some people who see me as more honest as a result. This perception then gets carried over to the rest of my work too, which is nice.
I’ve been slowly executing a plan for my business that I started back in 2008, but then stopped, and then picked up again in late 2012 once it was clear that CrankyAds was not in my future and I realised how much I loved being a blogger and blog teacher.
It’s been an evolving vision of course, and boy did I make a bunch of mistakes in the last 12 months (mostly choosing the wrong projects and bad people to work with). Of course the benefit of mistakes is the clarity you get, which is helping immensely this year, especially as the first phase of my vision is almost done.
What are you currently working on?
Hi Yaro, so sorry to hear of the loss of your mum. It’s difficult to keep going, but you’re strong enough to do it and we’re all behind you!
We’re a start-up business based in Manchester UK that provide video production and video marketing. Our industry is one that HAS to segment everyone we meet into different mailing lists, as we can offer each industry something a little bit different each time.
By segmentation, I mean not just corporate and music video, I mean separating the corporates even more, down to: accountants, lawyers, digital marketing, events organisers etc etc.
We send each of these lists a slightly different, more personalised message in our email campaigns. It enable us to reach out to them not just as a business but on a personal level as well.
We are in no way experts at this and (like I said) have only been going for around a year, but it seems to work for us so we’ll keep going until we find a better way of doing things!
1 thing I will recommend: MARKET RESEARCH. It’s boring but necessary. Find out what people WANT to hear from you; supply and demand!
Hi Laura,
Thank you for your support. I am curious, how do you do your segmentation in terms of technology? What platform do you use?
Yaro
Your enewsletter today grabbed my attention. I have just began my journey to earn a living off my website and this segmentation technique is really insightful (though I just have a handful of subscribers), will bear this in mind when my list grows.
Hi Edward – you definitely have an advantage if you keep segmentation in mind when you start.
One of the great things about doing segmentation is it forces you to learn about your audience on much deeper level. When you do this well you can also leverage that deep relationship to build a successful business from a much smaller base of people. That I believe is the true power in this and a big part of the “new” way of blogging I see going forward.
It’s not about how many blog readers you have anymore, it’s about who they are that matters. You can do so much more with 1000 highly engaged people than 10,000 random strangers.
PINTEREST – ?? OMG No !!!
Use Pinterest – it is your friend IN BUSINESS big time.
Go where the people are and get noticed . . . I love pinterest.
Sorry just had to defend , you need to spend time there – to see why it is so addictive . . It’s about the subscribers agenda, they are relaxing and enjoying themselves, there is no pressure from individuals, unlike FB and Twitter.
Pinterest- is about just that, SEGMENTATION – segmented lists of niches within niches within niches.
What a resource – there is nothing else out there as valuable, seriously.
Valuable for research, for getting noticed , for finding subscribers, for subscribers finding you and your products, your websites, for spotting trends – in fact you dont have to even go looking for them – pinterest lets you know the most shared pins on the site, as well as how many are sharing yours, commenting, sharing – period.
You can track where your pin about your product went, who thought it was worthy of sharing.
It’s driven by the subscribers and as yet, not overly commercialised- so the opportunty is humungous.
Mmm okay – zipping lips . . .shackling fingers . .
Haha, that was a dig at Pinterest in the video Jade, I wasn’t being serious…well too a degree. I bet a lot of people… *cough* women, lose all kinds of hours in pinterest just surfing around.
It’s not my focus in terms of marketing right now, but if you like the format and it hits your target audience, it really does seem like a great option that is really driving huge traffic numbers right now.
As I will write about in the future, being selective in what you focus on and what you ignore or leave on maintenance mode is absolutely critical. You have to segment your own attention and leave most of the segments on standby or you just won’t progress.
Hi Yaro
Long-term fan, podcast listener and EJInsider… If what Bill says is right above we have all got a problem as my Gmail randomly decides which emails it shows images in and if, for example yours came in without, I am presented with the choice to show images on this email but not to always show images from that sender.
I am panicking a bit at the thought I might miss something of yours because I might not have been shown a pixel!
Now I am off to read about traffic in EJInsider because my blog / site is stagnating / losing organic traffic after a promising upward climb from Jan 2010 to 2011 even though I add new multimedia content several times a week.
A mate has started text blogging daily and has seen her traffic double.
Liked Jade’s ideas above and I’m with Linda on video – hate them, would much rather read quickly. Bulletpoints of content at least please!
Cheers, Nicola
Hi Nicola – Check the EJ Insider blog post I did on the SEO experiments, it includes a bit of a background report on how my blog traffic fell, why I think it did and how I brought it back up again.
Most of the segmentation I am going to do is based on clicks, not opens, and even before that based on what entry point you went through to get on my newsletter.
The main difference is instead of sending out general broadcast updates I will have email gauntlets, which are like mini-courses that are focused on particular subjects. If you want to know about traffic, join the traffic segment or click the link to add yourself to that segment.
I’m also going to send out a survey that will allow you to tell me what you want to learn, another way you can say “I want to be on this segment so I learn about this specific topic”.
It should be a win for everyone. It’s easier for me because I can focus my writing on certain areas and people can choose what topics they want to learn about.
It’s the same thing I do now personally. I only pay attention to the information that solves my immediate problem and ignore the rest. I have to do this or I will be too distracted to get anything done. It’s the only path forward, and as a teacher I have to help facility this focus for my own audience.
I’m one of your Blog Mastermind students, and out of that my first website was created. It is still going strong over five years later, although I haven’t made a ton of money on it – yet. I do have five nonfiction Kindle books based on that particular segment. It is the only blog I have that is segmented.
After listening to your podcast and reading your post, I realize I do need to segment in other topical blogs that I have. I’ve been hit and miss as far as following your posts, but I believe I need to pay more attention to what you are coming up with now. Thanks for the information.
Good article. I’ve been reading your info for years for one simple reason: You are always honest! Unfortunately, that’s a rare quality in some of the emails I receive (most of which I have now signed out of). Thank you for just being you.
I’ll let you know when my website is up and running.
Hey Yaro,
I have come back to your blog after a long time. Not because I lost interest in it, but I couldn’t invest my time in it. I am your customer of BMM and MSM!! I bought them very early in my internet entrpreneurship career, that’s what I think. It’s because I haven’t made much use of their potential. I still love them and give full credit to them for setting fundamentals of Internet entrepreneurship and blogging in me.
I am a psychiatrist from India, and I have my private consulting work. A father of two and my wife is a gynecologist, so I have many chores and responsibilitie to live with. But that’s not an excuse for not living what my heart truly wants me to live for!
I really appreciate your honesty and genuinenness in business. That really inspires me. I haven’t been an active inforpreneur, but my son knows Yaro Starak because his dad shares his passion and talks about Yaro to him!!
I appreciate that you share even that part of your life when things don’t work well in the areas where you mentor others. That requires confidence in your abilities to bounce back and commitment to be genuine.
So keep inspiring, Yaro. God bless you.
I have few questions to ask-
1. Being a customer of BMM and MSM, where can I now connect with more like-minded people? The same BMM forum?
2. I have just come to know about SendPeppper. The little brother of Ontraport. Would you suggest embracing it over Aweber. I like Aweber, but have not yet done much with it too! The features of SendPepper seem very robust and scalable. Wont it be difficult to switch if a person later on decides to move from Aweber to Ontraport? Is SendPeppper/Ontraportbetter at segmentation?
Hello Sudeep!
I remember you, your name tends to stand out (like mine I guess!).
I am loving seeing all these previous BM and MSM members pop-up from years ago. It makes me very excited to teach those two programs again, albeit completely revamped versions for a much changed blogging environment.
To answer your questions –
1. The old private forums was shut down a while ago. Now instead I am using a Ning social platform to run the community aspect of my training that I call the EJ Insider Community. At the moment only a charter group of 100 trial people are in there using the platform, whom I communicate with daily. You can become an EJ Insider Community member if you sign up during the order process for any of my products you can find at http://www.ejinsider.com
2. Normally I would definitely recommend SendPepper, but word on the street is that the team behind Ontraport are either phasing out SendPepper or changing it. The replacement might be a junior version of Ontraport, but nothing is confirmed as yet.
I found the move from AWeber to Ontraport not too hard. The training videos at Ontraport are quite good – and actually funny too as they use a ninja style to present it.
I think AWeber is a great place to learn about email marketing. SendPepper I never used, but yes your thinking is sound – if you want to get serious about segmentation and product funnels you are going to need Ontraport. SendPepper would be the smarter entry choice in that case.
Yaro
Great post Yaro, I used to do send my all my emails to everybody and I had such high unsubscribing rates. Then a friend suggested segmenting my list and it has help significantly. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Yaro. Thank you for sharing these email marketing tips. As a beginner in online business, i learned a lot of good tips from it. I haven’t started email marketing yet. But when i start it, i will surely follow your tips to achieve success.