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Introduction
We see then that there is the need for communication between the business
owner and the prospect if any marketing is to take place. The traditional routes
for this communication is through newspaper, radio, television, billboards, flyers,
posters and direct mail. Email is a latecomer in this arsenal and is still going
through its own evolution.
What must not be lost sight of is that email is only a means of communication.
By this I mean that you, the marketer, are looking for a direct response (eg. to
buy a product) from the receiver of the marketing message. An example of a
non-direct response will be a billboard ad, which normally is used for branding
purposes. No one is expected to pull over and fill out a form on the billboard and
send it in, or make a purchase while going 55 mph.
An email is an electronic mail and therefore you’ll expect that there will be a lot of
similarities between email marketing and direct mail marketing. But of course
there are also significant differences as well.
For example in direct mail marketing businesses often risk thousands of dollars
and have to wait for weeks before they can determine a campaign’s success or
failure.
With email marketing you can have the results within just a few hours for a single
promotion!
Marketing through email is one of the most effective and essential promotional
strategies online because of a number of factors.
2. It is immediate – You may have to wait a couple weeks before you can
judge the response from a direct mail campaign but you can get response
from emails within minutes of sending them out.
In direct mail marketing, you will create a marketing piece and then buy a list
from a list broker. You will then carry out a test of the sales letter before you do
any mass mailing. Normally you are only allowed to use this list once. So
mistakes can be very costly.
With email marketing you also need a list of emails to mail to and you are
expected to manage this list instead of a list broker. In most cases you’ll build
this list for yourself so you have more control, and ultimately more profits at the
end of the day.
Why? A main reason is that one of the first technologies that new Internet users
learn is emailing. Even web surfers who have little other computer skills know
how to send and receive emails. This may therefore be your first point of contact
with your prospects. It may also be your most effective and accessible contact
point with your visitors.
Your primary business asset is not your product or service. Your primary
sellable asset is your customer list.
This list will determine the difference between just breaking even and making a
sizeable income online. In fact if you noticed, the matter of email marketing and
list building is so important that some companies only goal is to build a list - lead
generation. These companies then rent out their list to other companies.
Most people don’t realize that when a company runs a TV ad that it’s not
uncommon for them to lose money on that ad. The cost to run the ad exceeds
the direct sales that they receive from those customers. Where the profit is made
is from follow up sales or back-end sales. The company is willing to lose upfront
in order to make profit later on.
This is the approach that Internet marketers must often take as well.
Any product such as an ebook that is sold for less than $50 should be seen only
a lead generation product and NOT as a main product. From these customers
you can then make further back end sales over and over again.
We’ll now look at how to set the stage in place to start your email marketing
business to capture and profit from these leads…
The most significant decision that you’ll have to make in setting up your email
marketing business is about list management.
You can decide to do this on your own by using an autoresponder script that you
can purchase or go with a web-based company on a subscription basis.
Auto responders provided by most ISPs still work this way by providing an
automatic response such as a message saying that you are away on vacation
and will return the email later.
Now let us look at some of the advantages of doing this with your own installed
autoresponder script:
• All your emails will have your website URL in the links and so you’ll be
branding your own website.
• You are in full control of your email list and so don’t have to worry about
another company losing their database and in the process lose your list.
• You will only have to pay for the script once, which will be cheaper than
paying for an ongoing subscription service.
• You don’t have to share domain with other list owners whose spamming
practices may jeopardize other members of the same service.
• You are allowed more flexibility than a company would provide. In other
words companies normally have rules to safeguard the company and not
the customers. For example you may be limited to a certain number of
email imports per month.
In essence you have full control and can make rapid adjustment as you see fit
and are independent of another company’s rules. If you choose to use a
company to host your lists there are important advantages as well.
• One of the major advantages today of using a company is that they know
how to fight all the over zealous SPAM measures that sometimes filters
out legitimate emails. In other words, a company will get a listening ear
quicker from AOL than just an individual business owner. This is becoming
a major factor as email response has dropped considerably because of
filtering software and so called black-listing.
• If you are just starting out you are not required the upfront investment as
when you buy a script. A good autoresponder script may cost $200,
whereas an autoresponder subscription service may just run you $20 per
month. By the time you are in profit the autoresponder service will be able
to pay for itself.
• Most companies have an affiliate program that you can join and so recruit
other users, turning a needed service into an income opportunity.
Those are the major advantages and you must choose what is more important to
you. If you are not a ‘techie’ you should definitely go with the company service
since the learning curve is less steep.
Some people like to know that they have full control and so will prefer to use a script that
they can install the fully control.
The real challenge today with the SPAM filters and the low response rate of
email marketing as a result is email deliverability.
More and more marketers are finding that using a company service increases the
chances of their email getting through.
Now, whatever route you take you’ll have to learn how to integrate an email
capture form within your website.
You simply have to cut and paste this into your web page where you want the
form to appear. You will also have to choose an email address that will trigger the
auto-response email. But this is as technical as it will get.
The contact points are all the places from which you may get new leads. We’ll
look at those in the following chapter.
The opt-in forms are the signup forms integrated into your website where
someone can register to receive more information from you. You can place
these at as many web pages as is feasible.
This should be a primary function of any website that you own – collect email
addresses.
Your autoresponder will then send out a series of messages from which you
can now generate a customer list. So you start by generating a prospect list from
which you’ll farm your customer list.
Your customer list will of necessity always be smaller than your prospect list.
Your prospect list is all the interest that your ad has generated and your
customer list will be those who had trusted you enough to purchase from you.
Again, remember that your customer list is now where the money lies buried
and from which you can mine the gold. All marketing test have shown that when
an individual is interested in a particular subject they’ll buy several products
based on the same subject.
For example just think about how many products there are on personal money
management. And new books keep coming out all the time. The point here is
that if your customer bought a gardening ebook from you then you could even
sell them a CD on garden sounds!
Just think about the books you may have in your library. I’m sure that you have
more than one book on your favorite subject.
The point here is that when your customer makes a purchase you can then
promote another business’ product that is related to yours and make a
commission or affiliate sale.
We have already mentioned the importance of having an opt-in form built into
your web site.
Since this is likely the first point of entry into your marketing machine then we
need to discuss some ways in which you can improve the effectiveness of this
mechanism.
Once visitors have arrived at your website, here are some tips in directing them
to your opt-in form.
• On your home page make one of the primary navigation links, be a link to
your opt-in page. Make the name of the navigation button as obvious as
possible, such as “Newsletter”, “Ezine” or “Email Newsletter”. Or better still
make your home page THE opt-in page, something I always practice.
• Promote articles from your current newsletter on your main pages and at
the end of the articles place an opt-in mechanism to your newsletter.
• Include an opt-in form in your sales letters that will promise some benefit
related to your main product.
On that last point, many marketers have started to put capture forms right in the
middle of their sales letter.
For example, a visual screenshot of how it looks like (from my “Mini eBook
Secrets” site) can be found here:
Next let us take a look at copy and design for your opt-in pages.
Keep in mind that you want to persuade your visitors to take action even though
it’s a small one...
All the elements of the page - images, copy, and form - should serve to create
confidence in your business. You may also include a link to a sample email or
newsletter issue so that the prospect can get a taste of the value you provide.
This will provide the social proof and credibility that you need. This shows
you walk your talk.
• Strong Benefits – Be sure to show all the benefits that the subscribers
receive from signing up with your list. They know that they are giving you
their contact information and want to be sure that they are receiving value
in return for this information. If you can show several strong benefits that
they’ll receive in return then you can boost your visitor to subscriber
conversion rate.
You should also include a brief two-sentence email policy located near the form
“submit” button and a link to your company’s more detailed privacy policy
(optional). For example:
Widgets will not use your email address or information for other purpose
than to send you important updates about our products. To see our
complete privacy policy you may go here. (Link to Privacy Policy Goes
here)
Summarize the copy by stating what the subscriber should expect from you in
terms of the frequency of emails and how they should go about confirming their
subscription, if you’re on a double opt-in system.
This is important since if they don’t receive the confirmation email then they will
not receive your other messages as well.
You should also include a field for validation of the mail address to eliminate
typos and potentially bad email addresses. You can then make other fields
optional such as interests, demographics and a backup email address.
For my own opt-in pages, I tend to keep it simple. I’ve stuck to just asking for first
names and email addresses since day one.
We shall now go through the 7-Step System to apply for your own email
marketing success. Be sure to apply them all.
In fact, study each step carefully and combine them into a system.
Doing so will ensure that you reap maximum results and eventually long-term
cash payouts from your email marketing business!
Step One:
Generating Quick Subscribers
Congratulations! Now that you have the basic system and mechanism in place,
it’s time to start on the 7-Step System to create your own cash cranking opt-in
lists.
In Step One you’ll learn how to fill your database with targeted subscribers.
(There’s no need to get everything perfect before you kick off as nothing will be
perfect – you got to just start doing it – this is the secret to getting into action
fast!)
For example, a list of general business opportunity seekers will be cheaper than
a list of ‘home business opportunity seekers who make over $45,000 per year’.
The second is more targeted and has more defined demographics –- these
people make over $45,000 per year and should have better disposable income.
The more you know about your list then the better you can
curtail your offers to suit them.
This is where targeting comes in as a very important factor. You don’t want to
send an email to a list of pet enthusiasts about buying bowling shoes.
There are several strategies that can be used to build your email list.
These all differ in terms of the time investment, money and effort involved. Of
course the fastest way to get a list will be to buy one, but building a list over time
may cost you next to nothing.
In the first case you save time, and in the second you saved money. You must
decide which is more valuable to you.
Do joint ventures with newsletter owners in your niche and include a signup form
on the web page that contains your offer. You can even collect the email
address before the offer is shown.
You may have to do some research to find these newsletter owners but you can
use a resource such as:
http://www.ezine-dir.com
http://www.ezinelisting.com.
The more often your sign-up forms appear, the greater the probability that you
will get subscribers.
This may be in the form of a popup box or on every web page itself. You must
realize that everyone who comes to your website will not necessarily come
through your home page. A different web page may show up in a search engine
results so it’s not every time that someone would arrive by your main page.
Trade real estate on your ‘thank you’ page for your subscription form with other
list builders in a complimentary field.
For example, if you are running an Ezine on health, then you may place a short
text ad for an Ezine on natural cures in exchange for the health Ezine owner
placing an ad for your newsletter on his/her ‘thank you’ page.
This is a simple win-win proposal that works to the benefit of both Ezine owners.
Bonus Lead-In
Offer a ‘demo version’ of a program you are selling or free chapters to an ebook
in exchange for their email address.
In this way you have a second chance of making the sale along with building
your list. This is also an easy excuse to collect the email addresses of your
website visitors when you don’t have a newsletter of free report to give away.
Add an opt-in message in the signature file of your emails – this works.
In this way with each email you send out you give the prospect a chance to sign
up to your list. The use of signature file in emails is how the major free email
service providers were able to build their list so fast.
Here’s an overused but classic example which illustrates the method perfectly:
Just think about how many subscribers used the Hotmail service because they
signed up form the ad attached at the bottom of every email sent out by Hotmail?
Referral Script
Use a “Tell-A-Friend” script on your website that will allow your visitors to
recommend your website by filling in the form on your site.
This can work effectively at the bottom articles where you place the “Tell-A-
Friend” form to encourage readers to share the article with a friend.
Article Marketing
Write articles regularly and submit them through article submission services to be
picked up by newsletter publishers.
You can include an opt-in message in the resource box. When people read your
articles you are considered as an expert on the subject. Those readers who
require more information on the subject will sign up for your list.
Instead of going from website to website to submit articles you may use a paid
service such as available at http://www.submityourarticle.com
If you sell a product or service you can include an opt-in box on your ‘download
page’ or ‘check out’ page for your list.
Be sure that the customer is aware that they are signing up for it at this time.
Refrain from using “pre-checked boxes to comply with present laws.
Ecourse Marketing
Offer a short course by email. It’s interesting too that some marketers have been
able to offer paid courses just by emailing the lessons.
It should not be difficult to offer a free course by email on the condition that you
are providing valuable content.
One way in which you can build this course is to write an ebook and then offer
each chapter as one lesson in that course.
In this way there is a higher perceived value by calling it a “course” rather than an
ebook and because of how the information is delivered in stages the anticipation
makes it more attractive.
Include your list’s opt-in information in all of your reports and information
products.
This gives every reader an immediate opportunity to sign up to your list and helps
to brand your name with your newsletter. Especially if your ebook is a viral
product then as the ebook spreads then so will your list increase in subscribers.
Even if you do not offer a newsletter, you can offer website update
announcements to those who sign up for them.
This gives you a legitimate reason to collect the contact information and send
them related offers from time to time.
Pass-It-Along Recommendation
Place a note at the end of your newsletter (if you create one) encouraging your
readers to pass on the newsletter to their friends who they think will benefit from
the information.
Just this suggestion makes it more likely that they will because you suggested it
and they respect you.
Pay-Per-Click Capture
Keep in mind that you are paying to have these visitors to your website and
should capture their information whenever possible.
Include your opt-in information in press releases about your product or service.
Here is another point of contact where you may obtain new subscribers from
those who read the article and have interest in your product.
Offline Capture
Even though you are building an online list you cannot ignore offline marketing.
You can use list brokers for direct marketers and snail-mail these lists with an
offer redeemable at your website. You can also hand out fliers, business cards
and use a vehicle logo to advertise your business.
Even Google is now getting into the local market idea. So don’t neglect the
traditional ways of list building.
Phone Contacts
Ask your telephone contact and queries for their email addresses and their
permission to email them from time to time.
Most likely if they are willing to spend time on the phone with you they will also
read your emails.
Safelist Marketing
Run a safelist and send your promotional emails to the contact email addresses.
Most safelist are not very responsive at the list email address because of the
deluge of emails received there. But as the business owner you can send emails
to the less crowded contact address.
The real profits are not found in being a user, but an owner of a safelist.
Start A Forum
Those who sign up to use the forum will normally give you permission to contact
them with important updates. As the forum becomes more popular so will your
list grow almost effortlessly.
Service Delivery
Provide a free but valuable service and require password entry to the web page
with the information.
This will build the perceived value of the information and you will add subscribers
to your list this way.
Viral Services
Run a free viral service such as a start page program or list builder.
New subscribers must build their downline in order to earn credits. All of these
subscribers now become your subscribers that you can send promotions to.
This is one of the best hands-off methods to building a list. If it’s not abused, this
method can be very effective at building your list.
I’ve just provided you 22 ways to build your opt-in list above, as it’s obvious that
your email list will be the lifeblood of your email marketing…
As mentioned, this will be the difference between success and failure as an email
marketer.
I’ll touch on this in the next few steps, but here are some important principles you
must be aware of before we proceed:
The more effort you demonstrate in building your list, the more valuable
your offer will appear and the more subscribers you will get.
• Keep in mind all the points of contact with the prospect. Through email,
website, seminars and other offline advertising. These are all ‘places’ to
obtain their contact information.
• Use single, double or even triple opt-in approaches in getting emails if you
so desire, but be sure that you have the prospects permission. Pre-filling
check boxes where the prospect is not fully aware of what they are signing
up for can only backfire in terms of spam complaints.
In other words your best prospects are those who raise their hands and
say ‘yes’ I want to be on your list.
In other words, you are likely to get more subscribers if you simply ask for
a first name and email address (like I do) than if you asked for a last
name, email address, date of birth, favorite color, marital status, etc. The
more complete your data is the more you can target your list but the less
email you will collect. You must therefore strike a balance here.
• To establish your credibility with the prospect you should provide a clear
privacy policy and ‘terms of use’ for the information that you are collecting.
• Here’s a mindset to have: think of any list that you are building as a
leaking bucket.
The next few steps will teach you how to turn your normal list into a hyper-
responsive one. These include techniques to increase YOUR own believability
and credibility.
This is important so that your subscribers will relate and respond more to you,
instead of other marketers.
Before we get into that, you need to know how to minimize your emails being
‘lost’ and getting through to your list in the first place.
Step Two:
Getting Your Emails Through
According to SpamCop, over 391 million pieces of email were reported as spam
last year alone. These were just the ones that were reported.
This of course provides a challenge to the legitimate email marketer who must
get email past traps set up for the ‘bad guys’.
From these reports the companies are able to adjust their filter to try and
eliminate these unsolicited emails.
The idea behind spam filters is to compare each email message against a
number of predetermined parameters assigning a ‘pass’ or ‘block’ grade. One
of the more popular spam filters used to check if your email will be considered
spam is SpamAssassin.
Quoting from their website they check for ‘spamminess’ by using the following
criteria:
The total score will determine whether your email is filtered or not depending on
the ‘bar’ that is set by the ISP. Some ISPs may place this bar as high as ten and
others as low as three.
This involves some level of creativity but this is not a virtue that the spammers
lack who you are really competing with.
User clients such as AOL 9.0 allow the account holder to add email addresses to
their “friendly” list so that these emails are not mistakenly deleted or reported as
spam, so...
Meaning, you’d want to stop the filters and get more of your emails through
immediately once the prospect subscribe to your list. How do you do that?
You may want to make a suggestion to your list members to make your
domain address a part of their friendly list.
Similar tools are available in Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook where the user can
choose to filter or accept an email depending on the origin.
You can use a message like this in your subscriber thank you email or web page:
“Please don’t forget to add our sender email address to your personal white list
so email is properly delivered to your Inbox - instead of a bulk-mail folder.”
A more detailed message you can place on your own thank you page after they
opt-in is:
• Create a contact listing for YOUR NAME with the primary e-mail address
xxxx@yourdomain.com
For Hotmail users
• Open your Hotmail e-mail account
• Click "Contacts"
• In the left-hand menu, click "Safe List"
• Enter yourdomain.com and click "Add"
This places the burden of delivery on the sender and not the receiver and my
advice is to do it, you only have to do this once for one ‘from’ address.
You may never know if that very subscriber for whom you chose not to validate
your address is a valued future customer.
Let’s visit the issue of the length of the body of your email….
In general, you’ll see that the longer your emails are the more likely they can be
filtered. This is also the main reason why most of my emails are rather short.
You can find a list of words that trigger most spam filters here:
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter_phrases.htm
Another service you can check out is e-Filtrate. I haven’t tried it yet but many
other marketers have apparently endorsed it.
Step Three:
Building Believability And Credibility
And like all other relationships it is based on trust and respect. If you show
respect to your subscribers then they’ll in turn come to respect you.
And if you develop a great following by being yourself and giving good value,
your subscribers may actually go all out just to buy from you.
As an example, here’s an exact real email I received (name has been removed
for privacy purpose):
From: xxxxx
To: dirty.d@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 6:35 PM
Subject: link to XXXX’s products
Hi D
2 days ago when I left your site a pop up showed the products of xxxx/.
I saw them before but I investigated them via your link. I remove
my cookies which I did yesterday. Today I thought lets go back to his site
and use the link again. Now I see you have another pop up.
Can you give my your link again, as you were the first I think you should get
the credit for it.
kind regards
xxxxx
By the same token, I’ve also received emails from subscribers apologizing for not
being able to buy my products due to budget constraints etc. This may seem
strange but it’s because of the open relationship I’ve built with them, and the
respect we’ve for each other.
I’m telling you this to highlight just how important and powerful having a
relationship with your list is.
Here then are 6 proven techniques to help you to build credibility and
believability with your list quickly - two vital components of relationship building.
But whatever term you use, marketers have come to accept the fact that it’s the
products that stand out in the users’ minds as different that succeed. The same
applies to your emails as well. Your emails should reflect your passion, views,
voice - all that says you.
This does not mean that you have to be arrogant or bombastic, but your
personality, or one you choose to assign to your letters, should readily shine
through. If your emails sound same-o, same-o, you are likely to be easily
forgotten.
Just think of your favorite newsletters and why you read them.
Most likely apart from the information you receive you can attach a certain
emotion or feeling to the newsletter. This is normally expressed in the words
such as: “I love the way she writes” or “This guy is something else!”
Think about what you can offer in terms of your personality that will be refreshing,
unique and distinctively you.
You should also build some exclusivity to your list by offering them “subscribers
only” discounts and special promotions. If you are launching a new product you
can give them a special discount or announce the product or service to them first
before you launch your general campaign.
This fact is the philosophy behind the American Express® card advertisement
that says, “Membership has its privileges”.
If you can offer special bonuses to your readers and show that only your
subscribers receive certain privileged benefits then you are likely to build a
stronger loyalty.
You can for instance ‘bargain’ special joint-venture prices for a popular affiliate
product, provide an extra bonus incentive for making an affiliate purchase or offer
some special report.
These are just some ways, I’m sure you can think of more in relation to the needs
and wants of your own list.
How can you be sure that you are delivering what your subscribers want? It’s as
simple as asking them.
All you have to do is carry out a survey or invite them to tell you how you can be
of better service to them. No rocket science here.
Asking your subscribers to rate the information you provide them is one of the
most effective methods of targeting relevant content and products for them.
Let them tell you what they love and what they hate.
In this way you’ll also know if you are delivering on your promise; if you are
scratching where it itches. Not only does this place your subscribers in the
control seat but it eliminates the guessing that goes on in your head whenever
you press the ‘send email’ button.
It also shows that you care about your readers and value their opinions – all of
which are important elements of building a long-lasting relationship.
If you are catering to a particular niche then you should know the terms and the
‘insider group’ way of expressing your ideas.
In other words, plumbers have their own technical jargon as do golf players; so
should your ‘members only club’. For an outsider the language may appear
strange but the insider is at home with this manner of speaking.
Again this overlaps with the personality factor but goes further in helping your
subscribers identify more readily with YOU and your publication.
Those who made the early purchase then feel cheated when they see that the
‘late comers’ received the same ‘deal’.
It’s best to lost a couple sales and keep your reputation in tact rather than gain
the sales and lose your credibility with your list.
If you stick to your words you’ll have better response from the procrastinators
next time around. Trust me on this ☺
Now I’d like to expand on technique 4 as it’s a crucial factor to take note of.
When they first subscribed to your list they did so because you promised certain
benefits to doing so. Most likely you promised to solve a problem or improve
their lives in some way.
There is a delicate balance that must be reached between the value you give for
free the value you get in return. It’s something I was having trouble with until I
stroked a balance.
In other words, if you continually send promotional emails to your list for them to
buy from you they will soon think that the relationship is one-sided where you are
always the benefactor.
On the other hand if you continually give valuable information for free then your
subscribers may become ‘spoiled’ and expect to get everything from you for free.
(This is the main reason why many marketers are not making money from their
list by the way – too much of the ‘nice guy’ approach)
You must be certain what you hope to accomplish from your list of subscribers.
If your intention is to make a profit then you should be able to benefit monetarily
but it will be wise to give first.
It is also essential that you stay on target with what your list is all about.
If your list was built around pets, you should avoid sending ‘off topic’ information
too often. As you rule you should never send non-pet related product offers. It
will be better to form a new list surrounding another niche product than to send
unrelated, off-topic information.
The bottom line is you should make your list feel that they’ll gladly pay for the
benefits that you provide for them as free subscribers.
Keep in mind that the real value of each subscriber can be translated into dollars
for you eventually, so don’t be afraid to pay them back in kind.
In the next step, you’ll learn how to get even more response and click through
rate for all your mailings. You’ll love that!
Step Four:
Skyrocketing Your Response Rate
Understand that once you have succeeded in creating believability and credibility
with your list, it’ll go a LONG way to you enjoying many successful email
campaigns.
Now, there are various metrics that should be tested to achieve even better
results from your email marketing campaigns, especially after you’ve built up the
relationship as stated.
If you fail to test you are bound to waste your marketing resources. Just consider
that over 80% of your advertising dollars go for waste simply because of the
conversion rate of a typical ad. So even if 30% of your list members bought your
product there is still another 70% that didn’t.
And for online marketers the typical conversion rate is less than 2%!
That said, here are a number of metrics that you’ll want to test for:
1. Email Open Rate (OR). This is measure of how many clients opened
your email. The tracking is done by an invisible GIF image that is included
in your email. When the email is opened, this GIF image is loaded from
your server and this call is recorded as an open. This has its inherent
problems as some email clients may not be able to handle HTML emails
so would not record this metric. The OR is usually calculated as a
percentage of the emails opened to the total emails sent.
If you are interested in detailed statistics from your email campaigns then
you may want to check out http://www.emaillabs.com.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR). An email can be opened and still not read.
Your CTR will give you a more accurate idea of the response generated
by your promotion. In this case your reader must click on a tractable link
in your email message, usually the ‘desired action link’. So you may want
the reader to go to a particular website and your CTR will indicate how
many visited the website from your URL in the email.
3. Conversion Rate (CR). This next step involves the persuasion of your
website visitors to take the action you want them to. The number who
takes this action measured against the number who visited your website
(the CTR) will be your conversion rate. This is normally given as a
percentage.
Now here are a number of email factors you should test for:
• Subject lines – Use different subject lines (headlines) to find out which
produces the best open rates.
• Mailing Time - Try doing your mailing at different time of day and week
and check for the optimal open rates.
• Email Body length – Try different body length and place link at the end of
the email. Those who use that link will most likely have read the entire
email.
I can’t tell you how your own list and conversion will perform; you can only test it
yourself to get optimum results.
Though it consists of just 3 simple words, it’s not that easy to master.
However once you’ve mastered and combined them into one force, your click-
through rate WILL massively skyrocket from your current levels.
Relevancy
Here’s something to think about…
There are hundreds of message boards or forum online. Each forum is geared
towards a certain topic or interest and those who register are obviously interested
in that particular subject. Every now and then, someone may make a post and
will introduce this by labeling it as an ‘off topic’ subject. The point here is that the
poster knows before hand that the subject of his post is out of context and so
‘apologizes’ for the post.
The subject of this manual is on email marketing. If I suddenly told you about
how to make my grandma’s secret recipe you’ll think that I was losing my mind.
At least you’ll look for the lesson from what I told you. If there was none then this
will confirm your belief.
The same is true when you send emails out to your list.
If you send messages that contain a subject that was totally unrelated to your list
members’ interest then you’ll likely lose credibility.
Every magazine covers a particular subject and you expect the editor to keep
foreign stuff out. In this case you are your very own editor and should write to
the interest of your list.
Content
Content is what remains after you’ve stripped away all the ‘fluff’.
For example, right now you are reading this manual. The words go together to
form sentences and the sentences express complete thoughts – hopefully
<grin>. What you really want are not the sentences but the ideas that they
express. That’s the content.
I’m sure that you’ve listened to speeches or presentation where the person said a
lot but you were left with nothing in the end. Some people refer to this as a lot of
hot air - just a lot of sentences but no new ideas.
If there is just a lot of flavor but no nutrition then you’ll be filling them with a lot of
junk food emails.
Your readers will look forward to receiving your emails if you can give them solid
information that will bring added value to their businesses and lives.
It’s not that much of a revelation that content is king not only for the search
engines but for your email profits as well.
Here are a number of ways in which you can find content to share with your list:
• From your own expertise and experience in your field of interest. If you
have a list around generated around your product then you should have
something to share on that topic.
• Hire others to write articles and do research for you. There are writers
that will be happy to write at a fee for you. You may also choose to use
articles from article databases that can be easily found online.
• Buy print books on the subject and share the highlights with your list or
provide a view. Many online marketers tend to forget that there is a print
world out there and the information may be a lot more unique and
exclusive.
Copy
Yes copywriting applies to emails as well. You must understand the hot buttons
that motivates subscribers to take action and click through the links in your
emails.
There is a formula that you can follow which we’ll discuss later but you must be
aware that an email that aims to get people to take action must be carefully
crafted.
On the surface the email may appear to be a simple message but the writer must
know that there are psychological triggers within that email that will get people to
act.
The basis of writing good copy is to realize that your subscribers have mental
barriers that must be broken through if they are going to buy your product or
service.
These are some of the main objections that you have to address when you need
them to take a desired action, for example:
You must show them that they are getting more value than the price they
are paying you right now. It’s best to show a dollar example of how the
product can save them or make them more money or whatever benefit
you are promising.
Show that you are qualified to make the offer by listing your qualifications,
experience, awards received and what other authority in the field says
about you.
Testimonials of others who used your product will help to dispel this one.
If it works for other, they’ll think, then it can work for me too.
You must provide an incredible incentive to act now by adding bonuses for
the early birds or show that you have limited quantities. Show what they
will continue to be like if they don’t get your product.
Again testimonials will help to dispel this one. Be sure that your
testimonials have “average Joe’s” that used your product and had great
results.
Try to show how much like your potential customer you are. How you’ve
walked in their shoes and know where the painful spots are but most of all
have the solution.
It’s not difficult to learn the principles of writing good copy but it takes practice to
get the feel of the methods. With continual practice and some trial and error
you’ll soon discover what approaches works best with your list.
I hope this step has given you some good ideas and techniques in order to
increase the response rate from your mailings.
We’ll now study the technique of using influential suggestion to maximize the
outcome and eventual profits of your email campaigns.
Step Five:
Pre-emptive Promotional Tactics
While every marketer’s talking about direct promotion to your list, most if not all,
forget about ‘warming the audience’.
This means you need to gather your list’s attention and mind share PRIOR to
running a major campaign.
Why? It’s because by attracting more mind share and attention, you’ll get more
results and profits when you do run the actual promotion in the next few days or
weeks. Simple as that.
It’ll also help you to differentiate your mailings and stand out from the crowd.
Remember that your subscribers are probably getting tons of emails from tons of
marketers, so align them to yourself every chance you get, especially before a
major product launch or affiliate promotion.
Over a year before the first Lexus vehicle touched US soil Toyota was already
advertising the vehicle. Even though they were not yet available then, this
marketing strategy created such expectation that the first shipment could to
satisfy the pre-order demand. Just as this technique worked for Lexus sales the
same way it can work for your online business as well. You can create an
atmosphere of expectation for the release of your new product.
A recent case online is of course John Reese, who did it to such an effect with
Traffic Secrets that he sold more than $1 million in less than 24 hours.
What’s stopping you from applying this same strategy on a personal level to your
list?
Let me give you a quick example - Large companies with deep wallets can afford
to pay for advertisement whose sole aim is to develop brand awareness and not
make a direct sale. The small business owner is not that lucky. At the same
time this doesn’t mean that you cannot help your subscribers to associate you
with some positive idea or quality.
One of the best ways to do this is to add a title to your name. For example you
may use: Joe Smith, “The Email Marketing Guy”. You can assume any
legitimate title you deem appropriate and over time people will remember you
much easier than from your name alone.
Once you develop a line of products with your company byline and logo then
you’ll be better able to position yourself in the marketplace.
If you give away free reports with your branding information and use your byline
in all your email communication you’ll eventually be hard for your subscribers to
miss.
Another benefit of this (as mentioned), is that with all the onslaught of emails
these days your messages will be easier to recognize among the crowd because
of the differentiation caused by branding.
If you associate yourself only with high quality products then your name WILL
come to be associated with high quality products.
Your subscribers will then take the short route of making a purchase simply
because you recommended it; and if you did it must be good!
In our manual here, we want to create mind share to sell more products and
services when you’ve already built your lists.
Dramatize
Here you can bring up or discuss a relevant issue that your future promoted
product will address. So if it has to do with increasing email deliverability then
you can send out an article on the subject to warm up your list to the issue.
Create A ‘Problem’
Here is where you mention and start to agitate the problem of email deliverability.
Show how the problem was created and the solutions that are not meeting the
real needs of the email marketer.
To show goodwill to your list you can offer a free product that is related to the
promoted product that you intend to launch soon.
Again a report offering valuable information will work very well here. Not only will
this report add value to your main product, but also it will set you up as an expert
on the subject at hand. You also want to create a balance between your
promotional messages and your free offers.
Now that you have your subscribers already thinking about the problem you can
mention all the negative consequences of this problem.
Even for those subscribers who are not aware of this problem, they will now be
educated and desire a solution.
Show that you have a good understanding of the solution and that you’ll be
recommending or launching a product that will address this very soon ;-)
You can now announce how soon your product will be ready. You can direct
your subscribers to the “incomplete” sales letter that will get them salivating for
the product.
You have to change your copy slightly according to your needs, but the principle
remains the same.
Subject:
Body:
Hi FIRSTNAME,
A word of warning...
Come Tuesday 12th, you'll be receiving A LOT of e-mails about Dr. Joe
Vitale's "Hypnotic Selling Secrets Revealed" mega home study course over
at http://www.hypnoticsellingsecret.com
Because you'd want to *specifically* look out for my e-mail - it'll be in your
best interest to do so.
You'll discover the exact details on how to get $62,399.40 worth of actual
products and profits from me if you act fast.
It's insane. You'll see that I've outdone myself this time.
Now here's another reason why I'm sending you this message.
In fact there're actually 3 marketing techniques at work here you can learn
from - do you see them?
(1) Generating rabid anticipation (you can apply this on a *personal* level
to your own lists, it doesn't have to be large scale)
(2) Using curiosity (this is a very effective marketing technique often used in
successful copywriting)
(3) Creating an irresistible offer (you'll see a perfect example of this when
you open up my e-mail on Tuesday)
To your success,
Dylan
P.S. If you want to see the $21,393 bonus package Joe (Vitale) has put
together for those who acts in the first 24 hours only, go to
http://www.hypnoticsellingsecret.com for a sneak peek.
You’ll notice how the first email’s a ‘teaser’ to lead them into the actual launch.
The other two emails are included for a ‘big picture’ understanding of the strategy
in action.
Hi <FIRSTNAME>:
It's a promise!
Sincerely,
<Insert Your Name Here>
Hi <FIRSTNAME>:
So go through it here:
Sincerely,
<Insert Your Name Here>
Hi <FIRSTNAME>:
Sincerely,
<Insert Your Name Here>
The techniques here will be invaluable in your own email marketing business.
Adding on, you can also use the “Mind Share Grabber” technique in the form of
content-based stories, educational mistakes or a series of related articles etc.
But whatever the format you use, it’ll definitely gain you explosive results come
your actual mailing of the product.
The next logical step is in the mailing of your solo ad for promoting the actual
product.
Step Six:
Creating Cash-Generating Messages
You can use this chapter together with the “Instant Email Copy” software that
came together with your investment. You’ll in fact get more results doing so.
That said, here’s something simple but often neglected and forgotten…
You must not forget that an email promotion is first an advertisement and then an
email.
We will now look at the various sections of the email and how we can use each
to achieve the one purpose of getting the reader to take a desired action.
This is the first part of your email that appears to the left in most email clients.
You will often see email marketers use texts such as,
customerservice@compnaydomain.com or accounts@companydomain.com.
If you are a large company then your domain may serve as your brand. For the
small Internet business owner though, your name and domain name may be
more appropriate.
If you have different email accounts for different lists then you may use your
domain name and a word to show the department the email is coming from.
What I often do for my various list is to identify my name and use a pipe symbol
(|) to separate the product or list name:
What is important here is that with the clutter of email boxes caused by SPAM as
highlighted previously, you will want to quickly identify yourself in the “From” line.
Using a personal name is ideal here but more on personalization later.
Here is where the battle to get your emails opened continues and is mostly lost.
Because there are so many other emails competing for your prospects’ attention
what you say here can be the one determining factor whether your email will be
read or not.
If you personalize your subject line by including the subject’s name, the battle
is already half-won. This emphasis is comparable to copywriters who will spend
up to 80% of their time creating the headline for a salesletter!
What you write here will be determined by the relationship that you have with
your subscribers. If you are mailing to the person for the first time using a list that
you bought then you’ll have to be more creative than if you run, say, a newsletter.
In the former case you’ll have to use your subject line to build curiosity and
promise a benefit for reading your email.
Curiosity subject lines can get your emails opened but this doesn’t necessarily
increase your CTR. For example, one well-known internet marketer reports that
he used a subject line such as “This is barely legal ...” which dramatically
increased CTR but had no effect on orders
Curiosity cannot make it on its own - it must also deliver a valid benefit.
Tip: Different email clients such as Outlook and Hotmail will allow different
character lengths for your subject line and ‘from’ text. If possible, you should set
up different test email addresses that cover the demographics of your list and do
a ‘test mailing’ to see exactly how your email will appear. You may find that
some clients, such as AOL, will truncate your subject line at 51 characters and so
longer subject will suffer as a result. If you don’t perform this simple test you may
be surprised to see how your perfectly-formatted email messages appear to
different readers.
This formatting also applies to the body of your email, which we’ll move unto
next.
The email body forms the bulk of your email and here is where you communicate
your actual message. For this potion, you can follow the tried and true AIDA
formula from the world of advertisement writing:
To get your emails read completely you should try and build curiosity
upfront.
A great way of doing this is to start relating some information and then breaking,
promising to return to the subject later down in the email. This builds the
attention level of the reader as they try to resolve the unanswered questions that
you have planted in their minds.
“I just couldn’t believe that I was making so many sales with this new technique.
I just had to share this with you. But let me tell you this first …”
Another way to do this is to ask questions that will again raise unresolved issues
in the readers mind. It will be implied that you’ll give the answer to these
questions either in the email itself or at the website that you are sending them to.
Interest: After you have their attention, build up the interest by providing more
information on the problems that you can solve or how you can improve their
lives.
In order to build interest you’ll have to show that you can identify with the
problem that your readers are having.
You should not only show that you understand but you must agitate or magnify
the problem so that they’ll want to do something about it. We are creatures of
habit and most people have to be made very uncomfortable with where they
presently are in order to change, even for the better.
After presenting the problem you indicate the solution to this problem.
This is where you start to sow seeds of the decision that you want your readers
to take. They no longer have to suffer and worry because you are about to give
them the solution.
The natural question that then comes to mind is why they should believe you.
This is where you’ll have to present your credentials and track record. If your
subscribers are well acquainted with you, and if you have created believability
and credibility earlier, this may not be necessary but it still adds to your
credibility.
One or two strong testimonials will work well here. Especially if the testimonial
comes from an authority figure in the field. The testimonials should illustrate the
same results that you are promising in your email.
Desire: Build on their desire to have these benefits and visualize how their lives
will be better with the solution that you are providing.
Here is where you list all the benefits/bullets that your readers can receive
from taking action.
A key point here to note is that the feature of your product is different to the
benefit. A common mistake is to list a feature as a benefit. For example, a “soft
comfortable” mattress is a feature. Restful, trouble-free sleep and high energy to
face the day are benefits.
Let’s say that you are selling a recipe book for meals that can be created in
under a half hour. Now the obvious benefit here is that you will save time in the
kitchen. But don’t stop there, instead ask, “So what?” Well, you can spend more
time eating with your family, reading your favorite book, playing with the children
and watching movie. Just saving time means little if you are not showing how
that time can prove of benefit to the customer.
The same hold true for money. Money is just a tool that allows us to do things
that we would not be able to do otherwise. Most marketers stay at the money
and not show the lifestyle the money will afford.
Action: Call them to take action so that they can obtain these benefits.
Here is where you make an irresistible offer and show why they have to
take action immediately.
Most people will want to “think about it” so you have to overcome this natural
inclination by giving powerful reasons why they should act now.
You can do this by using a deadline to get the special deal, show how the offer is
limited in quantity or time and also by offering special bonuses.
Example: I cannot promise you how long this offer will last since we only have 50
packages left and this email is going to over 25,000 people on my list. So click
here to go to the website and place your order now!
We see here that you inject scarcity by indicating that there is a limited amount
and exclusivity by showing that there are many people who will be competing for
this small amount.
This instruction must be very clear and obvious. One of the major reasons why
many sales people fail is that after a great presentation they forget to ask for the
order. Seems silly but this is true.
Hot Tip: Now if you followed the formula above for your email message you’ll
see that it is very similar to writing any salesletter. This means that if you already
have the salesletter written by a great copywriter you can use a précis format of
the sales letter to quickly write your solo ads ☺
So you may use the headline of the salesletter as your first sentence in the email,
pull out the strongest benefits and testimonials and add your call to action.
This will help in your brainstorming and makes writing a solo ad from a website a
breeze.
Now there is always a lively debate on how long a salesletter should be and the
same applies to an email.
A general rule of thumb is that the purpose of the email determines the length.
You may just want to keep in mind that if you want to lead your subscribers to a
website containing more detail information then you would not want to reveal too
much upfront. In this case your email will simply serve as a teaser.
It’s disappointing to see the many emails I receive from reputable marketers that
are not formatted properly. Some lines are longer than others, paragraphs way
too long and just poor general layout.
For text emails, the lines should be set to around 55-65 characters per line.
There are many text formatters on the market that will do this for you, one of
which is at http://www.fwointl.com/FWOFormatter.html.
You can also do this manually by using a hard carriage return at the end of each
line (pressing the Enter key on your keyboard) to ensure the line lengths will be
preserved when copied and pasted into your email client.
In the case of HTML emails, you would have performed the formatting before but
this rule of making your email easy to read still applies. Remember to also give a
lot of ‘white space’ by skipping a line between paragraphs that should only be
two to three sentences long.
This makes your email more inviting to read than having your prospect labor
through cramped unformatted text.
Be sure to include your contact information and also a signature file. Your
signature file provides one of the ‘stealthiest’ ways of promoting a product
because its function appears so innocent.
Subscribers expect your ‘sales pitch’ to be in your email body not at the end. You
can even apply this to the P.S. statement.
When all is ready be sure to perform a simple spell-check to catch those pesky
oversights that can take away from the professional impression of your email!
Body:
Hi FIRSTNAME,
[Asking a question is a attention getting technique to pull the reader into the
rest of the email]
Here's a rough draft of a new product that will be released in 10 days time.
Take your *sneak peek* at the half complete sales letter here:
[If you have a website with the full sales letter then it’s good to place a link
early in the letter for those who will want to go immediately to the website
without reading all the email. Note the link for AOL users as well]
(It takes quite a while to load as the photos are not optimized,I look awful
and there are quite a few typos, but that's not even important at this point)
As you read the salesletter, you'll realize why this is literally going to grab
the internet by its throat in 10 days time...
(b) Get on our "By Invitation Only" Affiliate prelaunch Team that
will pay a hefty 70% commissions, or $138 per sale! (You'll
be among the exclusive few who will be able to sell this
product with hardly any competition! Remember, the early
(c) Actually USE the product before anyone else to have the
unfair advantage
So not only will you learn how to become a Power Affiliate, you'll
actually BECOME one.
Rush to:
No exceptions.
Get it now:
To your success!
Dylan
[P.S.’s are one of the most read parts of an email. Here I make another call to
take immediate action using the technique of showing what will happen if
they DON’T take action now.]
P.S. Trust me, you don't want to miss out on this. You'll literally
feel the sheer horsepower of this product when you read the
salesletter with all the powerful endorsements.
[Yet another ‘take action’ link and invitation to go to the website. There
should be nothing subtle about what you want your readers to do]
[Note: All the links that I use throughout the email are tractable so that I
could measure the Click Through Rate (CTR) for this email]
Step Seven:
Maximizing Your Profits
If the money is in the list then the “more money” is in the follow up!
Now when you are emailing your active subscribers, you wouldn’t want to
bombard them with THAT many messages. However you do need to follow up on
an offer at least once under normal circumstances.
Also follow up emails allows you the opportunity to finally ‘close’ the sale by
urging a final call to action on a special discount, limited quantities or exclusive
bonuses.
Using the same case study from the previous step, I’ll now show you an example
of a follow up email (as before, the email message is in italics and the comments
in blue):
[Personalized again]
Body:
Hi FNAME,
[Call to action]
AFFILIATE LINK
Thanks,
Dylan
P.S. Attached below's the original e-mail that was sent to you…
[Original email attached for second chance at getting your message across]
I’ve termed it “The Prospect Profit Funnel Sequence” and the email message
sequence should be as such:
1. First Email: Offer a link where they download a special “free report” that is
really an advertorial for your product. It is very important that this gives
some valuable information but mentions your product as having the
advanced stuff.
This report should give the “why” of your product and not the “how”.
In other words you don’t want to just give away the content of the product
but speak on why the product is valuable. Let the report lead them back
again and again to the salesletter.
2. Second Email: Refer them back to the first report, making certain that
they received it and found it valuable. Again refer to the product and
salesletter.
3. Third Email: The third follow up email should invite them to ask any
questions they may have about the report. You may also want to counter
some objections by answering some questions that some people have
been asking.
4. Fourth Email: In this fourth email give some more details on one of the
steps you mentioned in the free report. Offer some more benefits and tell
them that they can have more benefits from the product you are
promoting.
5. Fifth Email: In this fifth email you want to get more aggressive – to “go for
the kill”as a manner of understanding. There is no fear that you’ll drive
them away with this hard selling tactic because they are already informed
on your product. You may want to just pull some bulleted points from your
salesletter and then lead them directly to the order form this time round.
6. Sixth – Ninth Emails: For the next 4 follow up emails, you may just give
some more benefits with some strong testimonials and direct calls to
action. Here is where you do the hard sell and have nothing to lose except
the sale.
The majority of marketers doesn’t follow up with their prospects or worst still their
customers to make more sales from them.
In doing this they’re leaving A LOT of money in possible backend sales on the
table…
If you can follow up on them and get them to make two more purchases within a
month from you then you’ll most likely have them as a lifelong customer.
The hardest purchase to get is the first; the second and following are always
easier. As the saying goes…
Here we go…
• First Email: “Thanks you for your purchase and do you have any
questions?”
You can send this about two days after the initial purchase as a surprise
bonus. This method will surely reduce refund requests even if the buyer
was thinking about it. You are trying to generate a good feeling from him
or her towards your business.
This is where you hope to get customer testimonials. You can also offer
another bonus report. When you get emails you can then ask if you can
use their feedback (if good) to use as a testimonial at your website. This
email should be sent about two days after the second.
This email could be sent about a week and half after the third email. You
can offer an upgrade to the product they just bought or another related
product with a ‘customer only’ discount. This ‘deal’ should not be
available to non-customers.
This offer could be from another of your products or a related product from
another business that you’ve struck a joint venture with. This could go out
a week after the former email. Free trial offer will also work very well here.
Unless you don’t bombard them with offers you’ll have a ‘goldmine list’ by
now. These are they who have stayed the course and put up with you!
You can also stay in touch by sending updates about your products and
sending special offers anytime you can. It’s important that they hear from
you at least once per month so that you can remain in their mind. If you
wait too long they may not even remember that they bought something
from you in the past!
To recap, you’ve learned why you should follow up and how to do it well in this
step. I’ve also shown you various follow up methods for both active and new
subscribers…so it’s only a matter of applying these tactics to all your email
campaigns now.
Look, I absolutely guarantee you’ll see more sales and profits almost instantly
simply by following up, even just once to your active list! Try it…
“If the money is in the list then the “more money” is in the follow up!”
Conclusion
Several Internet marketers have used these very same techniques that you’ve
just learned to make millions of dollars. These strategies are not rocket
science but they need to be implemented!
If you are just satisfied to read about email marketing and not place this plan into
action then you’ll receive no benefit from the new information that you now have.
Let’s look at the seven critical steps to follow starting right now:
Here’s what you must also remember to do once you get successful…
Pay special attention to your lists, especially your customer list, and
always keep a backup copy of these precious assets.
Most online marketers know that if everything was taken away from them, except
their customer list, then they can be back on their feet in no time flat.
Email marketing and list building should therefore be a primary aspect of any
online business!
Almost any type of advertisement that works costs you money. Once you have
your prospects, subscribers or customers, you should try and generate as much
profit from that them as possible…
Now, this doesn’t mean that you should take advantage of them, contrary to
that…
…YOU as a successful email marketer should in fact deliver value to them and
get ‘reciprocal’ profits in return.
Cheers,
Dirty. D.