Borrow Copy from Top Email Marketers

There is a very good chance that you get a lot of emails from various Internet marketers.  As a quick aside, I recommend that you start unsubscribing from lists that aren’t providing valuable information to you.  Too many top marketers sale without giving you useful content.  Give your email inbox a break and unsubscribe from their lists.  Now on to my point about email copy.

The main reason for this message is to convey the importance of paying close attention to and studying the autoresponder messages of effective email marketers.  What do they say in their email copy and how do they say it?  How much personality are they using?  Do they provide you with valuable content?  Pay attention to all of these key points.

The reason you should pay such close attention to these points is so you can use their messages as a foundation to write your own.  Do you think you have something to learn from someone who makes $30,000 just by sending a single email?  Probably.  As is common in the copy writing industry, a swipe file is something you should have.  But this swipe file will be of emails, not sales letters.  Look at the email copy that made you purchase a particular product or service and use that as a basic model for some of your products.

I’m not advocating wholesale confiscation of emails, unless of course you have have been given explicit rights to do so.  I’m talking about ideas to use as a foundation.

For me, a few email marketers stand out from the rest.  One of them is Michael Rasmussen.  When he sends an email recommending an affiliate product, he doesn’t just send a two line email saying in so many words- “Buy this.”  He gives a thorough rationale for why he is recommending a particular product.  And some of the stuff he gives away for free is pure gold.  So Michael is alright with me.

Another marketer who is quickly building a name for himself and who impresses me quite a bit is Jason Fladlien.  He’s an interesting guy.  And in email marketing, being interesting sells.  He’s also a top class copy writer, which helps tremendously in writing emails.  I recommend you check some of his stuff out.  He makes like 20 products a year it seems- if not more.

Frank Kern’s stuff is some of the most “borrowed” stuff out there- particularly his email subject lines, like “bad news”.  He is a trend starter, so he’s definitely one to pay attention to.  If he starts to do something, expect others to follow soon.

I think my point is clear.  Pay attention to the Internet marketers who actually provide value in their emails.  Pay attention to the marketers who draw you in with their autoresponders, the ones who make you feel like you are being somehow compelled to buy. Then use some of their ideas in your own email copy.

The Most Important Element of Email Marketing

In order to have a responsive list, you have to have a good relationship with your list.  Building trust and value are key ingredients that must be present in your email marketing strategy.  So while it is smart to recommend products to your list that you genuinely feel will be helpful, your efforts will be much more effective if you build trust with your list.  Trust is built by providing valuable information to your list- information they can use and get immediate results with.

So whether you provide an e-course, free reports, videos, coupons, audios, or whatever else, make sure you provide it with the intention of actually helping your list.  That should be the primary goal.  If you prove to them that you are a trustworthy source of valuable information, they will trust you, and they will want to purchase what you recommend, whether it is an affiliate product or a product of you own.

On the other hand, if you abuse their trust, they will not buy from you and they will unsubscribe from your list.  Some especially spiteful customers may even report you for spamming them (even if it is untrue) because they are frustrated that you are constantly pitching to them without providing anything of value.

So don’t be that person.  Be the other guy- the guy the customers look forward to getting messages from.  Remember, building trust and a relationship is the central email marketing strategy needed to have a responsive list that buys the things you offer.

10 Quick Ways to Build a List

Growing a list of 1000s of responsive subscribers
by Fabian Tan

The importance of list building is talked about all the time. But just HOW do you build a list of responsive subscribers on a daily basis?

I’ve created a 10-point cheat sheet that you can use to grow a list of 1000s of subscribers, mostly on autopilot.

Here are the 10 steps:

1. High Leverage Article Marketing

With article marketing, I’m not just talking about the usual step of submitting articles to article directories. That still works very well. What I’m referring to is submitting your articles to popular authority sites in your market. For example, if you’re in the Internet marketing niche, popular sites like Entrepreneur, About, Associate Programs and even popular blogs like Site Fling are possible places to submit articles.

Submitting your articles at these places means you’ll have less competition and receive more traffic without having to compete with thousands of other articles.

2. List Builders

List builders typically work like this: you sign up for the exchange, and you’re allowed to promote to thousands of other members with an email promotion, but in exchange, you agree to receive emails from other members as well. Examples of such networks include List Joe, The List Auction, Viral URL and the new Viral Ads Unleashed system. I have personally used List Joe and The List Auction to add hundreds of new subscribers to my account every month just by sending out an email every 3 days. It is definitely worth a go.

3. Forum Marketing

We’ve got the old workhorse of forum marketing here. The problem with many people when it comes to forums is they don’t have a system. You’ll want to create a list of authority forums in your market, and then submit to them religiously almost every day. If you have a list of 5 forums, and you submit 5 posts to each of them every day, you’ll get a steady flow of new sign-ups each day. And this is just ONE of your traffic streams that you’ll be using to build your list.

4. Giveaways

Giveaways are another proven method of building your list. The idea is that dozens of list builders promote the same giveaway event so everyone grows their lists. The drawback to this is that you may be “giving” away your subscribers to dozens of other lists. Well, these days, you don’t even have to promote the giveaway if you don’t want to. Yes, you don’t have to! Many events provide the option of upgrading so you will receive additional points that will boost the position of your gift.

5. Ad Swaps

One of my biggest list builders is ad swaps. The idea is amazingly simple – find other list builders in your market, and propose to them that you will send an ad for their squeeze page to your list, if they will do the same for your squeeze page. This is a startlingly quick way to grow your list. I have personally added tens of thousands of new subscribers to my list from this method alone. It seems this method is picking up steam with other marketers as well.

In my opinion, this is like giveaway list building on steroids. But, unlike in giveaway events where the person who runs the giveaway is really the big winner, in an ad swap, 2 parties can be the big winners.

6. Blog Marketing

A blog is labor intensive but at the same time it can drive a flood of targeted visitors to your primary business. The great thing about a blog is that there are many ways you can leverage it for traffic – you can use it to tag and ping, it is easy to social bookmark, RSS is easily integrated and it is great for search engine optimization. Through my blog (which I have not been paying as much attention as I should), I have added hundreds of new subscribers.

7. Video Marketing

Video marketing is a highly scalable strategy for getting traffic. The hard part is getting the video created. Once that is done, promotion can be easy using automated tools like Tube Mogul and Hey Spread. These tools (or websites) submit your videos automatically to more than a dozen of the most popular video sharing websites online. Imagine if you create a short 3 to 5 minute video every week and submit it to more than a dozen of video sharing sites weekly. That should be enough to give you fresh inflows of subscribers.

8. Craigslist

The popularity of Craigslist.org has been growing immensely in the past year or so. In fact, in 2008, Craigslist’s popularity grew by 87%. This is probably because more people are going online to either search for bargains or to look for jobs or business opportunities. This means that Craigslist has never been a more fertile ground for marketers to tap into. I have not been taking advantage of it as much as I would like, but it is certainly something to put on your to-do list.

9. Ad Brite

Ad Brite is a banner ad exchange website where publishers and advertisers work out ad deals. I have personally advertised my sites on dozens of sites in the network and have reaped hundreds of fresh leads. The competition is also far less than it is on AdWords.

Here is a tip: Direct response, all-text banner ads seem to get the highest click-through rates.

10. Get Response Power Leads

If you’re looking to buy leads, then look no further than Get Response Power Leads. I have spent hundreds of dollars with them and have gotten a lot back in return. My list grows by the dozen daily and these people are highly responsive. Because the system is backed by one of the top autoresponder companies online, you can be sure of the quality of the leads, because they are real. I highly recommend checking them out.

There you go, my 10-point cheat sheet to growing a list of hot subscribers in ANY market. Apart from the List Builders tactic (which is more suitable for the home business niche), all the other tactics can be used for any niche.

All that’s left is to TAKE ACTION!

Fabian Tan is an Internet Marketing expert and author of the popular 59-page report: “Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!” Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your FREE copy now.