Introduction Email Marketing Strategies
It seems my article on network marketing list building created a lot of comments. I think the reason for that is there are a lot of people out there wanting to know.
1. How to build a list
2. How to profit from that list
I have had many discussions with people who simply don’t understand why list building is one of the essential email marketing strategies.
I believe most people identify email marketing as a spamming. Especially folks who are relatively new to the world of online marketing. If you are one of those people sitting there wondering if you should start getting involved with email marketing consider this.
All major businesses use email marketing in their business. In fact it is near impossible to do business otherwise. So the bottom line is, yes you need to build a list. No you won’t be considered a spammer if you use it properly.
Email Marketing Strategies – The Dark Side Of The Force
It happens to all of at one time or another. You start to build a list and out of desperation you start trying to sell anything you can think of just to make some money. Your list will never be a powerful asset for you unless you treat each person on your list like a real person.
Because we are marketing on the internet it is easy to forget that there are actually people on the other end of your computer. I know marketers who do nothing but promote, promote and just in case you weren’t sure if you really didn’t want whatever they promote some more.
Don’t do that it’s absolutely pointless to do that and worse you are going to burn your list. Just because you may be a clickbank or commission junction etc, affiliate doesn’t mean you should sell everything under the sun. You should only recommend products to your list that you have found personal value in.
If what you are promoting to your list doesn’t in someway add real value to them, stop promoting it.
Email Marketing Strategies Around The Web
E-mail Advertising and marketing Strategies
Article from Article Mayhem and entitled E-mail Advertising and marketing Strategies – By Max Wiggins.
Publish Date:Â 09/24/2011 12:29
http://www.articlemayhem.com/Art/407487/50/E-mail-Advertising-and-marketing-Strategies.html
Benefits of Video Email Marketing
www.pixability.com Benefits of Video Email Marketing
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Larry,
I definitely think you are correct. Many people have the wrong impression about email marketing and really do not understand that it -should be- another avenue for relationship building.
They hear “the money is in the list” and assume they have to just relentlessly market. Of course this leads to more people thinking email marketing is spam AND gets them to say “email marketing doesn’t work”.
But that is really wrong. Just like blogging you have to build trust and a relationship. THEN when you clue them in on a good offer (only good ones) they will be likely to trust your recommendation.
Hi Steve, its all about relationship building…
There are a lot of people out there who start making sales here and there in different affiliate programs but they never end up adding up to much.
A big reason for that is because those people spent a lot of time pushing their products and very little time establishing a relationship.
It is important to not only consider how much commissions you earn but also the lifetime value of a customer.
1 person could literally be worth thousands of dollars to you over the course of 5 years…
If you get the relationship building part right, you can earn a really good income with a very small list.
Just imagine if you had 30 really good subscribers out of your 4000 person list. Now Imagine you are promoting something that earns you $100 and only 30 of the 4000 subscribers purchase the product.
I am throwing numbers out there just as an example , but I think you see my point.
What if you had 50 people out of 4000 that really liked you?
Of course it can take a lot of work to create a list of “buyers” that really value your opinion. At least that is true in my case.
Thanks for sharing Steve!
Larry,
You are absolutely right in your reply comments. In my “main niche” (the site linked here is a newer one I am building.) I have and over 80K person email list.
Now this is something I have been carefully growing over the years. Lots of free info. Not a ton of sales pitches, and those i do… I do carefully.
Like you said, because of this anytime I DO have a product to promote I almost always make 50-60 sales (at least) just from a single email. (a fraction of the total list, but exciting nonetheless).
I make a living from this and I proselytize every chance I get on email marketing, because I lay all my good fortune at it’s feet.
Email Marketing is about trust and need of subscribers, you can create trust by providing quality posts, by good interaction through comments reply on your blog and by answering their queries on social networking sites like FB and twitter.
Hi Aanchal, I agree all good businesses should start with trust. Thanks for sharing!
If you want to do successful Email Marketing then you need to work on List Building and Relationship Building together from very beginning of your blog/site. After few months when you have good list of members then you must have created some trust for yourself as well, so now you can start Email Marketing.
Hi Priya, thats the idea!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Hi Larry,
thanks for sharing.
I think you are definetely right : each e-mail in your list is a REAL person.
I can add to keep customer loyalty in mind. Point your subscribers to offers that provide a solution, serve a need, or fulfill a want, and you’ll be sure to make some money with your email list.
Hi Erik, I think the most important thing to realize is that the person on your list is also on other peoples list. If they feel you aren’t providing any real value they will unsubscribe very quickly or report you as spam. (Even though they opted into your message)
Thanks for the post. I’ve fallen victim to being over-promoted on many email newsletter lists. And you’re right, it was a sure fire way of getting me to unsubscribe. I was hoping for more useful information about the market, and not when the site had something new to sell.
Hi Lionel, I know what you mean. I think it’s because it is hard to tell who is sincere and who isn’t just by looking.
Anyone can outsource the building of their site to look professional. Doesn’t mean that the owner actually has a clue or even cares about sharing real value.
You see sites like these sprout up all the time.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Guilty as charged. I am so guilt of hard selling right out of the gate.
What I have found…it just leads to unsubscribes and future unopened emails…LOL!
Mark
Hey Mark, how you doing buddy?
Yep I think when most people get started they all do the same thing. Just try and earn out the gate.
That actually worked a few years ago. But consumers aren’t stupid they quickly wised up to what was going on.
Yes, email marketing can serve as a big help for online businesses to succeed, but what I would like to know is how do you determine if you’re doing the right email marketing strategy and can you measure its effectiveness. I will appreciate it if you can help me with this.
Hi Candice,
First an autoresponder system like aweber allows you to see your stats. From how many people open you emails, how many people click your links and how many people unsubscribe.
From those stats alone you can which of your headlines are working, if the body of your email is working etc..
In email marketing you have three main area’s to test.
1. The Headline
2. The Body
3. The Closing
All three can have a huge impact on your effectiveness. All three needs to be tested individually.
If your marketing efforts aren’t getting you leads to begin with you need to consider if your lead capture page just sucks or the places you are marketing suck.
For example: Lots and lots of people love a service called ViralUrl. For some types of sales its a good place to advertise. But you also need to understand that the majority of people in viralurl already have a business and more then likely aren’t interested in another one. So to make money in a place like that you need offer the people there solutions to their problems.
Good point! I’m on someone’s list and being over promoted is insulting so I would not want to do that to anyone on MY list. In a specific case, I had purchased a training program that would trickle in over 60 days and this person has actually tried to sell me MORE in LUE of getting actual training. Shame, shame.
Hi Sharon, I agree and disagree at the same time.
Let me ask you this question.
Do you want to get paid from online marketing yourself? If so realize that the only way that will happen is if you sell something to someone.
In online marketing you have no choice but to try and make as many sales as possible.
You should promote to your list, but here is a guideline to follow.
for every 5 emails you send. 1 should be a promotion 4 should be valuable content.
You are right though, some people just saturate what they do with promotions and wonder why they never make any money.
At the end of the day, in order to be full time online you need to make sales everyday.. Lots of sales.. So it goes without saying you need to promote constantly..
Just make sure to provide as much real value as you can along the way.
This post is another additional info for me. And it’s really helping me a lot, looking forward for your another post. Thanks!
Hi Larry
Email marketing seems to be really getting popular these days. I’ve visited many blogs that talk about it. I’d like to agree that it would not be good for your email marketing strategy if you try to sell just anything to your list. Marketers should not think too much about money making and should think more about their customers or their audience. The better you understand them, the more that you can make money out of it. 🙂
Hi Rox thanks for stopping by and commenting!
I have been nervous to start an email campaign for 2 reasons.
First, I don’t know how and I am not sure I have the time to start another endeavor right now. I don’t want to get spread so thin that I lose focus.
Second, I always thought of it as spammy and a waste of time. I mean, I never buy anything that comes to my email. But after talking to my dad (who buys everything that comes into his email), I guess there are lots of people who follow.
Hi Eric, perhapes because its called “email marketing” people get confused to what that really means. Spam is just illegal activities. If you join a list and you double opt in. Meaning that you said yes twice, surely it is because you really are interested.
Building a list of people who are interested in your niche is never a bad
idea. Imagine if you had a list of 40,000 people interested in fish oil? Do you think you could make money with that list?
You are right, although you may not be interested there are 100,000’s of other people in the world that are.. Just saying 🙂
Surely, building a list is one of the old-school strategies that never go out of date. I think that a good thing to have in mind when trying to sell something is – would I like to get an email about it.
Just treat the names from the list like real people with real desires and thoughts and it’ll go smoothly.
Hi Ana, I would have to agree with you. I am guessing list building started back when writing was invented.. So ya its a old school strat that works today! 🙂
Yup, evergreens are always evergreens 🙂
list building and earning profit from them is very important for every online blogger. list building depends pong your relations which you makes stronger after providing best valuable posts, contests and responding to your readers comment. this is the most common strategy now days and working like a diamond.
Hi Larry,
This is a really insightful post, especially as I’m a newbie blogger. Could you please share when is the right moment to look into starting email marketing? Is there a traffic treshold when it makes sense to start doing this?
Best,
Michael
Hi Michael,
Here are somethings to consider.
1. How are you marketing? If you are using lead capture pages, you probably want to use one right away.
2. If you are blogging, until you establish a readership a autoresponder isn’t that important. Mainly because nobody is visiting your blog. However once you start seeing traffic and comments etc.. you are going to want to implement a ar system.
3. List building (Email Marketing) is the most used way internet marketers make money online.
Larry you are right! Email marketing is one of the pillars to succeed in an online business, considering that you made use of it properly. Essentially, in this strategy relationship building is prioritized. I’ve been into online business for a couple of years and I have realized that legitimate sales take place after 2 or 3rd reply in mails. Is that the same with you?
The emailing meets the two main issues of marketing strategy: acquire new customers and retain existing customers. To be effective, it is a permanent and personal. The durability of the relationship will be more important than you are betting on the diversity of areas and supports application of the tool. Alternate newsletters, special offers, alerts, surveys, games or contests. Consider also the different modes of consultation emails, especially when on the move: adapt your messages to be played on mobile phones or personal digital assistant (PDA). In all cases, offer your contacts regular information and quality.
Thanks for this article Larry
“If what you are promoting to your list doesn’t in someway add real value to them, stop promoting it”.This says all about list building.Most of the people just promote,promote and only promote useless products through their list.I would like to share my personal experience here.I open emails only if I have an idea about marketer and if in the past I’ve found his articles or products useful.List building is less business and more relationship building.I’m myself a subscriber to
many list from different internet marketers but very few of them know how to provide real value to the person on other end of computer.And I’m happy to buy a product recommended by them.I don’t understand why people especially internet marketers don’t understand about the most basic aspect of business”If you provide a useful product or service to people at affordable prices they will be more than happy to buy from you”.This works in ecommerce as much as it works in Real world of business.After all every great business was built using this principle.
According to eMarketer 97% of small businesses use email marketing as the primary method to connect with customers or prospects.
I don’t understand why people especially internet marketers don’t understand about the most basic aspect of business”If you provide a useful product or service to people at affordable prices they will be more than happy to buy from you”
If you want to do successful Email Marketing then you need to work on List Building and Relationship Building together from very beginning of your blog/site. After few months when you have good list of members then you must have created some trust for yourself as well, so now you can start Email Marketing.