Internet Marketing Hints And Tips » e-mail

Why Not Email Marketing?

Gary Knox — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:35:50 +0000

If you are presently taking part in other types of Internet marketing but not email marketing you should seriously consider why you are avoiding this particular type of marketing. This is significant because email marketing can be a very important part of an Internet marketing campaign. Numerous business owners avoid email marketing for fear of being accused of spamming. Some Internet marketers may not have a clear understanding of what is spam and what is not so they avoid engagement in email marketing campaigns in order to avoid the potential of being judged a spammer.

Why are Internet marketers so afraid of being charged as being purveyors of spam? There are a number of reasons for this. First of all there are the harsh penalties associated with sending spam emails. Receivers of spam have the option of reporting the spam to their Internet service provider who will look into the validity of the claim. If the originator of the email is determined to be a spammer there can be harsh consequences such as banning the sender from the Internet service provider.

Internet marketers are also afraid of email marketing because they think it will not be well received by potential customers. This is an important concept because Internet users are bombarded with spam every day. Receiving this quantity of spam daily can be frustrating and may irk a few Internet users. These particular Internet users are not likely to be receptive to email marketing. The fear that these possible customers will consider email marketing as spam and stray to competitors keeps several Internet marketers from capitalising on this type of marketing strategy.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that despite the prevailing problem with spam, numerous Internet users are quite receptive to email marketing. This is particularly true in situations where they have specifically requested to receive additional information from the business owner concerning their products and services. Potential customers are particularly receptive to email marketing which furnishes something of value to the receiver of the email. Emails which contain in depth articles, useful tips or product reviews might be appreciated by consumers.

In addition, items such as e-newsletters and correspondence courses offered via email can be of particular interest to potential customers. E-newsletters are generally longer documents than traditional email marketing pieces and can provide a good deal of extra information to the email recipient. Email correspondence courses might be offered in short segments and typically amount to a substantial amount of information which is likely to be greatly appreciated by the email recipients.

One final way to prevent email recipients from viewing your email marketing efforts as spam is to only send out the emails to recipients who register with your website and specifically request for you to send them further information and promotional materials. This opt in method is ideal since it ensures you are not wasting your email marketing efforts on recipients who are not interested in your products or services. It also ensures the recipients of the email marketing campaign do not view the information and promotional materials they are receiving as spam. This method of compiling an email distribution list is rather effective but it is important to remember you should always include information on how recipients can opt out of receiving future emails. This is important because the email recipients may have once been interested in receiving marketing emails but over time this could change. If they are no longer interested in these emails, they might begin to consider the emails as spam if they are not afforded the option of being able to remove themselves from the distribution list.

Email Marketing: Making your message irresistible

Gary Knox — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:28:04 +0000

With the inundation of available products and information on the market today, you will have approximately three seconds—yes, three seconds—to hook a buyer’s interest and keep him or her reading. Fortunately, there are ways to breach this barrier and keep the consumer riveted to your message.

• Passion. Remember when you were choosing the topic for your product? Personal interest was a key element in that decision-making product. Now that you have a topic you believe in, let that passion show in your autoresponder messages. Mention those aspects of your product you find particularly fascinating and give them your personal endorsement.

• Write casual. Make your message read the way a conversation in a restaurant would sound. Big words might impress some people, but most of them just want to know what you have to say—and they aren’t going to rush to the dictionary in the middle of reading your message to find out what you’re talking about. Use short sentences and keep it straightforward and direct. Don’t be afraid to use contractions instead of the more proper two word phrases. Do, however, make sure your spelling and grammar is correct. You want to seem friendly, not sloppy.

• Be personal. You are writing a message that will be read by thousands of people, one at a time. Each person who opens your message is an individual, and will be far more at ease if you address them as a person rather than a piece of the collective public. Use the word “you” as often as possible, and limit the use of “I.” You don’t want to tell them why you’re so great. You want them to know how purchasing your product will benefit them, and why they should part with their hard-earned money to hear what you have to say.

• Eliminate extra words. As previously mentioned, keep your message simple and clear. If you have an “effective web site marketing technique,” don’t say it’s a “wonderfully amazing, mind-blowing web site marketing extravaganza method.” No one wants to try and cut through all the fluff and hype to try and decode your message. It’s also annoying.

• Use decisive language. Try to use action verbs whenever possible—this means replacing as many instances of “are,” “is,” “was,” and “were” in your message with stronger wording. For example: instead of writing “If your web site has been languishing with low sales, this program might be able to help your business grow,” say: “Your web site sales will increase dramatically with this program.” Write your messages with the confidence that your product is worth paying for, and your subscribers will be more comfortable buying.

• Give reasons and incentives. Don’t be afraid to repeat the benefits of your product throughout your message. Just as repetitive contact is effective in converting prospects to buyers, repetitive reminders of benefits—without bludgeoning people over the head with them—can reinforce everything they stand to gain from a purchase. Also, reveal some of the information in your product within your marketing message without giving everything away, and then state that even more exciting information can be found when you purchase a product.

Gauging the Reaction to Your Email Marketing

Gary Knox — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:42:57 +0000

Email marketing can in reality be a good deal more effective than most people imagine. Several business owners do not invest very much time, energy or money into organising an email marketing campaign because they erroneously believe all email marketing is considered as spam. However, this is simply not true. Business owners who have identified how to market via email successfully, enjoy a good deal of success with this type of marketing.

Before we can discuss how to ascertain the reaction to your email marketing campaign, it is crucial for business owners to understand how to design and execute an email marketing campaign which is successful. Potentially among the most important elements of this type of campaign is to ensure your marketing efforts are not considered by the recipients as being spam. One way to do this is to carefully develop your email distribution list. Whilst you can reach a tremendous audience by sending out your email marketing materials to a large email list, this is not effective if you do not know very much about whether or not the members of this email list are even interested in your products or services. It is important to mention that attaining a huge audience is not as important than reaching a highly targeted audience.

Centering your email marketing efforts on millions of recipients who do not have a specific interest in your products or services is not nearly as effective concentrating your email marketing efforts on only hundreds of email recipients who are in all probability very interested in your products or services. This is because you are often more likely to generate sales from a small, target group than you are from a large group without a specific focus.

Now that you know a little bit about email marketing and how it can be effective, you might question how you can ascertain just how effective your email marketing campaigns are in the long-term. This is important because it is not worthwhile to invest a good deal of time, energy and money into an email marketing campaign if your efforts are not getting results. Similarly, if your email marketing campaign is widely successful, you may want to consider organising extra marketing efforts to further your success.

Customer surveys are among the easiest ways to evaluate the response to your email marketing campaign. Asking customers to complete simple surveys when they make a purchase can furnish a good deal of insight depending on the questions you ask. Questions such as where the customer learned about your products and services may appear rather innocuous but this information can actually be quite valuable to the business owner. Learning where a customer learned about the products and services you offer, supplies excellent feedback for which of your marketing efforts are generating the most interest. If you receive a lot of responses stating customers learned about your products or services through emails, this is a good indication that your email marketing campaign is effective.

Another very popular method used to evaluate the reaction to your email marketing efforts is to closely monitor your rate of sales in addition to your website traffic immediately after you send out a new email to members of your distribution list. This can be helpful since an increase in sales or website traffic after an email was issued is a strong indication that the email was well received and encouraged recipients to visit the website and make purchases. However, it should be noted that there is one caveat to this method of evaluation. It can be quite difficult to determine whether or not the emails caused the increase in website traffic and sales if more than one marketing effort was made at the same time. For instance if you issue an email at the same time as you launch a new banner advert, you cannot determine which one is more effective and is driving the increase in sales and traffic. Therefore you need to organise your campaigns in such a way that evaluating the response is easier.

Using Your Mailing List to Make Money

Gary Knox — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:46:25 +0000

There are numerous ways to earn money with your mailing list. Simply having a large mailing list is no guarantee you’ll earn money with it, however. The secret to earning money with your mailing list is utilise it as a tool to not only get people to your site but to tempt them into buying once they visit.

Below are some suggestions you can use to make the best of your mailing list.

The first way to make money with your mailing list is to constantly add new subscribers to your list. It is necessary to have a large amount of visitors to your site to do this. If you send out regular mailings to your customers you can encourage them to forward the message by offering specials or freebies for new subscribers. You also need to make certain that your visitors can quickly find subscription information for your mailing list on your website.

Compelling offers will work wonders for helping you use your mailing list to make money. These can include free e-books, newsletters and free articles on relative subjects or a series of free how-to reports related to your product. Any of these things can be sent through e-mail, or you can place them on your site to encourage people to go there and download the item. Just make certain they won’t be hard to find.

While extending these offers, be sure to tell your readers how much you would like to have them forward the newsletter. Make certain to include an easy-to-read signature on the mailing that lists your name, your company’s name and any other contact information. As long as the message is important and offers valuable your readers will gladly pass it along to others.

There are some other ways of earning money with your mailing list that you may want to think about. Some people with huge, established mailing lists have started renting, selling and exchanging mailing lists. A few words of caution about doing this:

Make certain you find out any rules, regulations or laws regarding the trading of mailing lists.
Think about how your customers feel about your intention to swap or sell your list. Many may feel that you have violated their trust if you do not seek their permission before hand.

Making money with your mailing list is quick and easy. With little time and effort you will see profits increase and your customer list grow.

Winning the Internet Marketing Game

Gary Knox — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:08:18 +0000

Winning is what it’s all about, and in the internet marketing game, you’re going to have to be dedicated to success if you stand half a chance of winning. Competition is at its peak on the internet. Nobody sets out with any thought less than winning. You have to reach the top before you will even think about succeeding. You need to become known even before you sell a product. That’s the very nature of online businesses.

You will need to know and successfully target the customers in your area of sales. With all the competition out there, consumers have a great deal of choice and you risk being skipped over if your sales tactics aren’t the best. You need to know your customer and how he purchases both inside and out. If you have the money to do an actual market research, great; if not, you still need to seek that intimate knowledge of the people you wish to sell to.

Article writing is a very effective way to advertise your web presence. With the right content, you catch the attention of those seeking answers and lead them to your website. You can write articles yourself or have others write for you. The object is to get people thinking of you as an expert in your field. They will be more likely to view your website if that is the case.

E-mail selling is one of the simplest yet most effective ways of reaching your consumers. You start out at an advantage because the customer has already signed up for your list and indicated he was interested in what you had to say. A personalized e-mail message will help deepen the connection between you and your customer. This is the only method used by online marketers that has that advantage.

You ultimately decide if this is a game you will win. Whatever marketing methods you try, make sure you have done your homework and know exactly who your customer is and what your customer want to spend his money on. This is the first major step in success..

Why and How E-mail Viral Marketing Works

Gary Knox — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:05:33 +0000

What does a virus have to do with marketing? Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands and then to millions.

Public health staff offer sage advice during flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. Viral e-mail marketing works great on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital formats make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard….Keep it Simple Stupid. The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated.

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages.

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.

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B2B Marketers Do It, Too

Gary Knox — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:47:05 +0000

They employ viral marketing by e-mail as a marketing tool… what did you think I meant? Viral marketing can work well for B2B providers, as long as the following is true:

1. The product or service delivers value for the sender, in addition to, the receiver.

2. The offer has to be deliverable. You do not want to offer a product that you are unable deliver if demand grows rapidly.

3. The offer has to be easily transferable to others. E-mail and Web pages provide the best medium to facilitate this.

4. The best viral marketing campaigns employ existing networks to move the message along.

The basis of viral marketing has been around for quite sometime. The idea is that you incite your customers or referral sources to pass around something about your business to their network of colleagues and friends. Those that pass on your information get something in return. That something could be a gift or service related to your business.

Using e-mail makes it incredibly easy to pass information on to a friend or colleague, particularly if it involves something fun or free. With millions using the Internet worldwide, the potential for exponential growth is enormous. The great things about viral marketing are that it is free and works almost by itself. Once you make an offer and provide the facility for referrals, viral marketing spreads like… well… a virus…but the good kind.

To implement viral marketing in your business; first, begin with your customer base. Motivate existing customers to refer new ones. Second, go to your referral sources. Service providers, your external network and colleagues can be encouraged to furnish referrals that lead to business.

When thinking of things to offer consider what is likely to be beneficial, For instance, if your customers are stressed business owners, propose a reward that supplies relaxation and leisure… like a weekend away.

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Subtle Email Marketing

Gary Knox — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:34:06 +0000

Everyday Internet users receive dozens of emails telling them to buy certain products or visit particular websites. Whilst these emails arrive in the inboxes of unsuspecting Internet users every day, most of them devote very little attention to these emails. That is because emails which are blatant adverts are often deemed as spam. Virtually all Internet users have very little tolerance for spam. Responses to spam tend to range from merely ignoring the emails and having the email addresses barred from sending future emails to reporting the email sender to their Internet service provider for further investigation. We realize numerous Internet marketers have difficulty keeping their email marketing subtle. Therefore with this article it is my intention to provide some useful information on how email marketing can be kept subtle so it is not considered as spam.

One of the most important criteria for ensuring your email marketing is subtle and will not be viewed as spam is to supply something of quality to the recipients. This might include insightful articles or other useful facts which members of the target audience are likely to find of value. When email recipients recognise that an email they have received is providing them something worthwhile such as knowledge or information about a particular niche subject they are often more likely to spend some time reviewing the email because they will not believe the email to be spam. In addition to using the creation of this copy to convince recipients that the email is not spam, the business owners can also capitalize on this copy by providing subtle advertising. This might include product references in the articles or links to your website throughout the email.

Avoiding language which makes exorbitant claims can also assist in keeping advertising quite subtle. Employing superlatives and describing the greatness of specific products is likely to be viewed as blatant advertising. When this occurs, it is likely that recipients will consider there is no validity in anything contained within the email because they will believe the entire email is just one big advertisement for your products or services.

Another method to keep advertising subtle when running an email marketing campaign is to simply send your email to those who are likely to be extremely interested in your products and services. This is important because when email recipients receive an email which does not reflect their interests at all, they are not likely to take the email serious and may consider the email as a blatant advertisement. However, when the email is only sent to those who share a common interest the email appears more personalised. In this instance the email recipients are not likely to view every product reference as a blatant advertisement because they realise there is occasionally a need to mention products or services.

Also email marketing remains subtle when the content of the email is penned as though it is not coming directly from the business owner. The copy may talk about the products and services as if they are being provided by a third party. This makes the advertising appear more subtle because it does not appear to come directly from the business owner.

Finally, business owners can help to ensure their email marketing efforts are not regarded as blatant advertisements by keeping reference to your own website to an absolute minimum. Most Internet users frequently view links from one website to another purely as an advertisement. For this reason it could be worthwhile for business owners who are marketing an email campaign to keep links to a minimum and to carefully thread these links into even the most rather benign copy. The links should be provided as if they were merely included to provide the reader with an opportunity to learn more about the products and not as a way to encourage them to buy these products. It could be worthwhile to consider employing a writer with this type of experience to guarantee the copy transmits the desired message and has the desired effect on the email recipients.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Email Marketing

Gary Knox — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:41:05 +0000

Even if you are already operating a successful business, you might be surprised to learn your business can benefit greatly from coordinating an effective email marketing campaign. An email marketing campaign has a number of different advantages including the ability to reach a worldwide audience, an assortment of different marketing options at your fingertips and the ability to do a good deal of marketing with very little investment of money. It is the intention of this post to take a look at all of these different topics in order to offer an insight into how email marketing can benefit your business.

For several business owners one of the most prominent advantages of email marketing is the ability to reach a worldwide audience with minimal effort. Whilst traditional marketing techniques such as television advertisements, radio advertisements and advertisements in print media are commonly targeted at a rather small geographic area, email marketing has the ability to reach a worldwide audience. It is conceivable that you can reach an audience of this magnitude with other marketing methods but it would be a great deal more complicated to do and would in all likelihood call for launching advertising campaigns in several different markets simultaneously. This is possible but would involve an intense coordination effort and will likely necessitate having at least a few staff members to assist you in this endeavour.

Conversely, the power to transmit instantly via email can make it a good deal easier to reach target audience members with literally just the click of a mouse. The routine of producing the marketing materials for your email marketing campaign is significantly more involved but once this is completed reaching members of your target audience is quite simple.

Another advantage to email marketing is that there are a multitude of advertising options available to those who wish to employ this marketing strategy. The most generally used technique of email marketing it to send out group emails with product information and other promotional materials. However, another way to approach the concept of email marketing is to publish and circulate e-newsletters to interested email recipients. An e-newsletter is normally much more in depth than the type of information which would ordinarily accompany a promotional email. These e-newsletters commonly feature at least one in depth article as well as a few shorter articles which either offer valuable tips or review products. In addition there may be some graphics, advertising and links included in the layout of the e-newsletter. Email marketing campaigns can also take the place of email correspondence courses which typically focus on one niche subject and feature a few installments which offer detailed information on a particular aspect of the niche subject.

Lastly email marketing can benefit your business because it is a highly cost effective method of advertising. When you choose to organise an email marketing campaign you will probably invest money in employing professionals such as writers and graphic designers to assist you in producing content and an appealing layout for your promotional emails. Even so, this is usually less than you would invest in hiring the equivalent type of personnel for an offline marketing campaign. Nevertheless, unlike offline marketing methods there is not a great deal of cost connected with executing your email marketing campaign. Consider the creation of a television commercial where you will have to pay fees and buy advertising space to allow your advertising to reach the public. However, when you transmit your advertising via email, there is virtually no cost associated with this transmission method. There are of course costs associated with maintaining an Internet connection and retaining employees to send out these emails but these costs are minimal and can be regarded as part of the normal operating costs.

Writing Follow Up Messages For Autoresponders

Gary Knox — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:19:28 +0000

When it comes to making a sale using your autoresponder, follow up messages are extremely important. Most website visitors will not buy something on the first visit; it commonly takes more than six or seven visits before they decide to make a purchase. To keep them interested and eventually make the sale, you will need to come up with some innovative yet captivating follow up messages.

When you start composing your message, you will need to come up with compelling headlines. Compelling headlines will draw attention from readers, making them feel excited to read the remainder of your message. If you send out a message with a shoddy headline, chances are that your readers will just scan the email and not pay too much attention to it at all.

You can likewise grab the attention of your readers by sending them personalised messages with their names and other details. There are numerous autoresponders that personalise messages through the insertion of codes. When you send a message out, the code is substituted with the personal information of the subscriber. When receiving the email, the subscriber will see his or her personal information rather than the code.

The first message that you send out is typically an introduction message. These messages should be pitched towards giving your readers information as to what to expect from your messages. You can also mention information about your company and your products also. Your introduction message is really important, as it sets the tempo for the messages that follow.

When you send out your second message, you should inform readers about your products and services. Make certain that you explain what your products do and how your readers can benefit from utilising them. Then, in the messages that follow, you should put additional emphasis on your services and products. You need to be attempting to convince your readers that they simply must have your products and that your products are a superior to the rest.

To guarantee that you get the sale, you should include comparisons between what you offer and what competitors offer. This way, you will reveal to potential customers that you are indeed the best, with the best features and the best prices. Once you have a couple of satisfied customers, you will start to develop your credibility. If a customer is satisfied, they will let you and others know. Once a customer has praised your products, you can ask them for a testimonial which can be added to your messages and this will no doubt help to increase your potential sales.

When you close a message, make certain that you leave a teaser for the next message. This way, your customers will look forward to receiving your next message. You should also carefully weave in your messages your contact and order information as well, so readers can place an order at any time without any problems. If you put some time and thought into your follow up messages – you will start racking up customers and sales in no time at all.