The Importance of Email Marketing

It’s just too good not to do. We’re talking about targeted, direct messaging to prospects that are already primed to buy. They ask you for the information and they gladly read your messages each week, and it takes no extra work on your part. It’s the perfect system, and can dramatically increase conversions for any niche. But, with all that said, if you don’t utilize your email marketing system properly, it can also result in a lot of wasted messages and bored prospects. So, instead of signing people up and hoping they come back for more, here are some tips to make sure they keep returning.

The Joy of Automation

Automation is marketer’s best friend.
It saves you time, ensures on-going profits, and helps you develop a system that runs itself. All those people who make money while on vacation or sleeping? Yeah, they’re all on automated systems. Email marketing is all about building the perfect system – using a tool like Aweber or GVO to collect email addresses, send out messages to them at set intervals, and keep track of opened messages and clicks.

So, if you haven’t already done so, sign up for an autoresponder service. The tool of choice should be Aweber, as it starts at only $19 a month and scales up from there depending on the size of your list. If you get a big enough list to be charged more, you should already be making a profit. If you are already marketing and you need hosting, conference rooms, video building and more then GVO is the best choice for the professional online marketer.

Selling the Signup

Next, you need to create a form that will sell your readers on signing up for your newsletter series. This is a mini-sales page in its own right. Simply having a small signup box for an email address and name is not going to work. I recommend you have the following in place:

• A Strong Headline – Showcase what they’re getting up front with a bold headline
• A Cover Image – Convince them they’re getting a solid product for free, not just some random emails.
• Bullet Points – List what they’ll learn. Ideally, each of the 6 messages will have value in it. List each of them as a specific benefit they will gain.

For example, for a weight loss mini-course, one bullet point could be "No…all foods are not created equal. Learn what seemingly health foods could be packing on pounds as we speak." It’s compelling, it’s simple, and it’s easy to follow through with in your list.

• The Sign Up – Finally, ask them to sign up. Make sure to explain that they will be signing up for a newsletter list, but also that they will never receive spam from other lists. Be explicit in that you don’t sell or trade lists with any other marketers.

You’d be surprised how easy it is to sell someone on a free product when they only need to trade their email address. But you still need to sell it. Without a presell, your conversions will plummet here.

The Messages

Have your autoresponder already set up when people sign up.

This is the joy of a good email marketing campaign – you never need to do anything, it’s all on autopilot. Boot up the 6 messages ahead of time and then a few hard sells to go after that. There is something I like to call the Day 7 Message that every autoresponder series should have. Throughout each of the messages, you’ll have useful information, but no hard sells. However, on the 7th day, you should hit them hard with a strong selling message.

Offer them a discount, a limited time frame, or even exclusive bonuses that they cannot get anywhere else. These will all convince them that buying through your list is the best course of action. Here are some other tips for your messages.

• Additional Hard Sells – You can have additional hard sells, either for your main product, or for other products, but try not to have them pop up too frequently. Once a week or longer, with information rich content in between is good. Try to find new tips or news you can share every now and then to send out as broadcasts as well.
• Prep a Long List – Don’t just have 7 messages in your autoresponder. Try to have at least 2 months’ worth of content with the first week getting a message a day and then the rest of the 2 months getting 1-2 messages a week. This will ensure you maintain contact with plenty of opportunities to convert.
• Calls to Action – Every message should have a solid call to action in it. Even when not selling something, you can refer people to your website or blog for more information. This will get them used to following a link or taking your advice with every email.

A good email marketing campaign will take your conversion rate to entirely new levels and can even boost your conversion per customer rate above 1, allowing you to increase your total sales for every person you get on your list. It’s a must have for every good marketer out there, no matter what you’re selling. Which is why, if you’re getting started in the field, you should find the affiliate marketing training program that will focus heavily on email marketing and list building from start to finish.

Income Kickstart provides in-depth early coverage, along with detailed, long term strategies to scale your marketing efforts into multiple streams of income. Visit the link below for more details.