I've done a few things, so now I am looking to describe how those things went; or are going. The ultimate goal of building any newsletter list is to have users that interact with the content. I went ahead and removed around 200 users that had never interacted with any content. I think this purging is good to do several times a year. I then tested my audiences gained from several solutions. Here are the current results.
Measuring Stick (Low) - Giveaway Hops
So the way I can tell if the audience is worth it or not is by comparing it against my normal gains. These are low-interest users gained from book Giveaway hops. It's nearly free to participate in these, and I get a solid stream of users. I had 34 email addresses gained in the last month. I could have pushed this harder, but had a lot going in July. Of those people, 11 opened the email. 0 clicked on the link in the form which obviously resulted in 0 conversions. So: 32% open rate, 0% click through, 0% conversions. In the past this group has been at 27.3% open, 2.8% clicks, 0.36% conversion. What does all that mean? For every 280 people, I get one conversion.
Measuring Stick (High) - NoiseTrade
The best people I've found so far have been off NoiseTrade. A recent test of 430 users saw 51.8% open rate, 9.7% click rate, and 4.9% conversion. That is an absolute amazing amount. For every 20 people, I get one conversion. Again, that's amazing!
StoryOrigin - Results: Low
As you may recall, I messed up and used a universal link where I meant to get email addresses. I fixed this error and received roughly 54 email addresses total. I sent out my test email and 14 of those people opened the email. Of those 14 people, 3 clicked on a link to my form. None of them filled out the form for a free book. So: 26% open, 21% click through rate, 0% conversions. The result is moderately promising... The open rate is pretty standard, but the number of people clicking is high. However, none of them are converting. That probably means my offer is not hitting the mark correctly on this one. This is closer to my low measuring stick, so I am categorizing this one as "low" in results.
BookFunnel - Results: TBD
I just sent out the first test email to 153 new recipients. (Turns out some of the people are in both StoryOrigin and BookFunnel) This campaign will need the weekend to see how successful it is, but as of the writing of this, we've gotten 8.5% open and 2.6% clicks. That's nothing super impressive, but we'll know more over the weekend. I am categorizing this one as "TBD" until after the weekend. I will also take another look at my StoryOrigin results to see if those had any luck.
BookSprout - Results: TBD
So we still have only three users that requested an ARC. Those reviews are due soon. We will see if this sprouted any fruit over the next week or two.
