3 Keys to Success with Email List Marketing

If you want to learn about email list marketing, this post will offer a few helpful tips. Using a combination of trust, specials, and short reports will quickly lead you down the path of success. Now I’ll cover each point in bit more detail.

Gain Their Trust

One thing you have to do is gain the trust of your subscribers. If your subscribers don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you. The way to gain their trust is to give them valuable information. Don’t try to sell them something every chance you get. You actually have to make an effort to refer them to valuable content. And when you do recommend products, be honest. In the long run, your honesty will pay off because people like to buy from people they trust.

Offer Them Specials

Offer specials to your subscribers. When you give people special treatment and go out of your way to please them, they feel indebted to you and they like you more. When you list feels they owe you and when they like you, they will be more likely to buy. Also, a discount obviously makes your product less expensive, so that will increase the number of buyers. And the feeling of being in a special club helps as well, so be sure to mention that the discount is only for list members. And most importantly, make sure you mean it.

Create Short Reports

Another way to use email list marketing effectively is to create short reports to sell to your list. This is a little used method that gives you a taste of product creation without having to commit too much. You can create a short 15-20 page report and sell it your list for $10, or whatever price you think is appropriate. You can create a product a month this way pretty easily. As your list grows, this will be an easy way to make quick money. Once you have a number of reports completed, you can also offer a package deal to get them all for a significantly discounted price.

The Listbuilding Club – Tellman Knudson

Out of the list building courses out there, Tellman Knudson’s List Building Club is among the best, if not the best out there.

Now, I’ll be honest. Tellman is not my favorite email marketer. He likes to promote products and sell often. I get tired of getting so many product promotions. I’m sure you can relate if you are on the email list of many marketers. But with that being said, if you want to learn how to build a big list, Tellman is the guy to teach you. He made $800,000 his first year online. Now he makes millions a year. He knows what he’s talking about.

Ok, back on topic. The List building Club is an extremely thorough resource that walks you through every aspect of how to build a list. It has detailed videos that walk you step by step through every step necessary to do everything from setting up a hosting account, signing up for an autoresponder account, setting up a blog, putting your autoresponder code on your squeeze page, getting traffic, and a boatload of other things.

It also covers writing articles, press releases, ppc, and every other list building method out there. It also has tons of audio and written resources, and some nice bonuses. There is too much beneficial information for me to mention it all here. And once again, there are tons of step by step instructions. I am honestly not aware of a more comprehensive resource out there for list building.

For the current promotion, you can try it out for free for 7 days and you get free cd (you do pay $8 to cover shipping and handling). After the the 7 day trial, it’s $97 a month. Unless you are already a list building expert and know everything you want to know about list building, I’m pretty certain you’ll benefit a lot from it.

What type of Email Autoresponder Should I choose?

Choosing an email marketing service is one of the most important decisions you will make as an Internet marketer because your subscriber list is your most valuable asset. If you choose the wrong service, you will be severely limited in your ability to effectively communicate with your subscribers. If you choose the right service, you will find that communicating with your list effectively will be much easier. I don’t want you to make a hasty decision based purely on cost, so I decided to make this post about autoresponder options.

The primary decision you’ll make in terms of autoresponders is whether you will choose a subscription based service, or software that you will host on your own server. I’ll go over some benefits and problems with each option, then I’ll reveal my verdict on which option you should go with.

Self-hosted Autoresponder Scripts

Benefits

One time cost- this is obviously a good thing because in the long run it ends up being less expensive than subscription based services. The price ranges from free to several hundred dollars.

No restrictions on imports- if you have an email list from another program or service, you can import the entire list at will. If you are switching autoresponder programs this is a huge benefit because you don’t have to worry about losing subscribers through a reconfirmation process.

Problems

Complex to install- If you are tech savvy, then maybe this isn’t an issue. But if you are like me and are not that comfortable with technology, installing a self hosted script can be complicated. To be fair though, you can just hire someone to do it for you.

Limited deliverability- some web host servers will only allow you to end a limited amount of emails per hour, such as 500. If your list is really big, it might take a day or more to email your entire list. Most people only have a list of a few thousand people at most, so this wouldn’t be a huge problem for many people. But if there is a time sensitive email you need to send, it can be a big problem. And if your list is really big, it can be a huge problem. Who wants to wait days for all of their emails to be sent?

Domain Blacklist concerns- If your build a list and subscribers are too quick to press the spam button, your domain could be put on a blacklist for spamming. So you deliverability can become extremely poor because of this.

Subscription Based Autoresponder Services

Benefits

Easy to use- you don’t have to worry about complex installations. Obviously, this makes your life a whole lost easier.

Safe – you don’t have to worry about domain blacklisting because the email autoresponder services have personal relationships with Internet Service Providers to significantly increase the odds that blacklisting doesn’t happen.

Unlimited list size- you can deliver to a large list immediately, no matter how large the list.

Reliable ongoing customer service- assuming you have a reputable autoresponder company, you can count on having ongoing customer support as long as you subscribe for any issues you have. There is a learning curve with these autoresponders, so having dedicated customer support is a big plus that can’t be underestimated.

Problems

Restrictive- you will have problems with some services if you want to import a list from another source.

Expensive- sliding scale of costs, so for some, the bigger the list, the more the monthly costs

What’s the Final Verdict?

After weighing all of the negatives and positives, it is a no brainer to get a subscription service. Sure, it will cost you more money, but you can’t expect to run a business for free. If you can’t afford $20 bucks a month for an autoresponder service, that’s a problem. Most people can spare that much cash. And if you are serious about an Internet business, you absolutely need to.

The biggest benefit is the deliverability. If your emails aren’t getting delivered, you can’t make money from your list. So clearly, you need to maximize the odds that your email will be delivered.

There are a number of email autoresponder services available. The industry standards for Internet marketers are Aweber and Get Response. Both work fine. Aweber gets better reviews overall though from my experience. And the most successful email marketers typically use it. So there is no need to reinvent the wheel. You can get an Aweber subscription by clicking here, and start building your list today.

Opt-in List Basics – Part 3

Building an opt-in list is more that just watching your total number of subscribers climb. Obviously you want to see a steady stream of new subscribers, but in order to accomplish that, you have to actually work at it because it doesn’t happen by itself.

One key tactic is to increase the perceived value of your freebie, or “ethical bribe”, by assigning a value to it. Take a hard look at what you are offering to entice prospects to subscribe to your list, and determine a value, whether it’s $10 or $300. Think to yourself, if you were to actually sell this as home study course or an e-book, how much would you sell it for? Once you have that figured out, be sure to add it to the copy on your sign up page.

Your e-mail list sign up page should sell the benefits of your list, just as a sales letter would sell the benefits of your product. So set it up the same way; use a headline, a subhead, and supporting text.

An essential point that shouldn’t be overlooked is having a way to take orders, because when you offer your products to your list, you need a way to collect the cash. There are many online companies that offer shopping carts to take orders, but to start out, PayPal is the easiest way to go.

Another key is to have reliable sources of traffic to build your opt-in list. Article marketing is the best way to start out, because it is easy to learn and it is free. There are tons of free sources online to learn about it. Once you have article marketing down, it’s time for another stream of traffic. One way is to use podcasting. The great thing about podcasting is that you don’t need to develop new content at all. All you need to do is read your articles into an audio program and you have a podcast. You can repeat this process for every article and have another stream of traffic with the same content. You can’t beat that for efficiency. YouTube can also be used in similar way by adding Power Point Slides or making a video of yourself reading the article.

In addition to knowing where your traffic comes from, you need to know what traffic source is converting into subscriptions the most. Once you determine which traffic source is giving you the best results, you need to focus more effort on that traffic source.

Growing a list also means you need a steady stream of permanent traffic. As you develop your traffic building skills watch your sign-ups and your business grow. Be sure the opt-in list you grow is targeted to the products and services that you’re selling and you’ll be well on your way to success.

Opt-in List Basics – Part 2

Let’s assume by this point you already have a quality autoresponder service. But if not, go out today and get an account at either Get Response or Aweber. These services are the most used by internet marketers because they are both reliable and flexible enough to meet your needs.

On average, across most niches or market segments, people say that a subscriber is worth about $1 in revenue each month. But in order for the revenue to be generated, there are some steps that you first have to take. But the good news here, with just with a basic level of math, you’ll see that it will only take about 20 active subscribers on your list for it to break-even. And it will take VERY LITTLE work on your part, to build your list to 20 in the first month.

Building a list from zero, means first having a free e-course, a free newsletter, or a free e-zine. In each of these three types of lists, your subscribers will get to know and trust you because you are emailing them on a regular basis.

How frequently you mail them will depend on your market, your base of subscribers, and even how much time you are able to commit to the development of your list. Ideally, your first set of messages should be at least three in the first week. If you wait too long, your subscribers may forget entirely who you are and why you are emailing them.

To be sure that doesn’t happen to you, simply remind them at the opening of your first few messages.

E-courses are typically seven to ten messages in length. Each message should be brief, but sould also teach something of value.

Remember that your subscribers are PEOPLE (just like you). So in order for them to see value in your emails, be sure to provide great content that they can use.

Growing a list also means you need traffic. So developing targeted traffic is also a skill that you need to build too.

There are hundreds of sources of free traffic available to you. But one of the best that can produce immediate traffic is article directories.

Ezine Articles for example, will place your article on their first page once it is approved. So you’ll be able to gain some instant exposure. The resource box is the block of text which follows the article, where you are able to state your expertise as well as present an offer for your free e-course, newsletter, or other online publication. Link back to a page on your site with minimal information … just enough to invite your visitors to sign up and start receiving your content.

Although having a opt-list of 10,000 or even 50,000 is a sustainable goal, the truth of the matter is that most marketers have a list that only ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers. So be encouraged with every new subscriber that you gain and set your subscription goals in small but achievable milestones.

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