Email marketing is still the best value for your money. To take advantage of this you need to start list building. There is more to it then just building a list but we get to that in later posts.
The Direct Marketing Association understands just how powerful email marketing is. Their extensive research shows that a smart email marketing plan delivers $43 for every $1 spent.
To take advantage of this powerful marketing tool, list building beginners should practice the following 6 top tips.
NOTE: These are my opinions and there are many different opinions out there. Read other opinions and then decide what you are comfortable with and START BUILDING THAT LIST. You can always adapt later.
1 – Make Your Opt-In Freebie Valuable, and Worth Paying For
In return for an email list, you are going to be giving away something. Make sure that your opt-in bribe is something that people would happily pay for, then give it away for free.
This will raise your conversions, improve your level of integrity in the eyes of your subscribers, and make your list members anxious to open every email you send.
There are some successful marketers who NEVER give anything away for free and there are other successful ones who give lots of free stuff.
I like to create useful guides or tips and give that as an incentive to my visitors to give me their email address.
2 – Use a Reliable, “Big Name” Email Autoresponder Service
AWeber, GetResponse and MailChimp are well-known and respected email autoresponder services. Stick with one of those 3 (or another experienced and popular provider) to make the process as comfortable for you and your subscribers as possible.
Once you become more comfortable with the whole thing you might consider hosting your own email BUT there is no need to do so.
3 – Remove Everything But Your Opt-In Box and Text From Your Squeeze Page
When you ‘drive traffic’ to your site with the aim of collecting an email address, you want the page they land on (AKA landing page/squeeze page/optin page/lead capture page) to have just one of 2 choices – opt into your email list or leave.
You need to remove any side columns, headers, footers and everything else on the page. Your lead capture page needs to have nothing more than your opt-in form and text.
4 – Just Ask For an Email Address
Remove all of the fields in your opt-in box requirements except the email address. This has been proven time and again to increase conversions. The more hoops you ask a potential subscriber to jump through to claim your opt-in bribe, the greater the chance that person will leave without joining your list.
I am in the process of testing an opt-in with and without the name field. While more subscribers seems a good idea, if we want to communicate with them, having a name makes that easier.
I have a feeling that if someone does not want to give me their name, they really don’t want to near from me, they just want the freebie. I’ll do a post on the results of my test of how many subscribers I get and how responsive they are when I have some numbers.
5 – Start Today
List building may intimidate you. Learning how to use your autoresponder service may seem difficult at first. You may be putting off creating an opt-in freebie to exchange for email addresses.
Many seasoned and wealthy Internet marketers say the number one mistake they made with their online business was not building a list right away. Start today, not tomorrow, and your list building efforts will be rewarded much more quickly.
6 – Don’t Start Selling Right Away
I know you want to start making money from your list. However, your first 2 or 3 emails should all be quality content only, no sales pitches.
You can follow-up your opt-in bribe with a “Thank You” email that surprises your subscribers with another high-quality and free piece of content.
Follow that email up with at least 1 or 2 more problem-solving, solution producing emails. Only then should you start thinking about trying to make a sales pitch.
Again, there are lots of marketers who start selling right away and sell all day every day. If that is your style and your ego can handle unsubscribes, then you can give it a try.
I unsubscribe quickly from any marketers using the approach of sell, sell and sell some more several times a day. I will not use it in my marketing efforts.
Having said that, I am on some lists where they email every day – ONCE – and they promote something in almost every email. They ALSO ALWAYS provide some useful and often entertaining information.
These emails are ones I always open and read from start to finish.
This is the model that I aspire to – I am not there yet as I am still working on my communication skills. (see my posts Do You Have What it Takes to Succeed Online – Leadership? and How To Make Money From A Small Email List to see why this is important.)
