Make Money With Your Own List

Email marketing is one component of online, Internet or electronic marketing. Email marketing is today’s version of direct mail marketing where you receive sales promotions via your physical mail (aka “snail mail”). Using email marketing can be an inexpensive and effective way to reach clients where they currently live and work: online.

When a customer “opts in”, they provide you their email address, often in exchange for something from you like a newsletter. Because they’ve chosen to sign-up, you can be more confident your potential clients are interested on some level in what you have to offer. This is superior to traditional methods like purchasing mailing lists because the recipients have elected to receive what you are sending. Sending email marketing pieces to those who did not “opt in” is considered spam.

There are a variety of email marketing providers available online, most with a free trial period. Some examples are Constant Contact and 1 Shopping Cart. These online providers provide templates to design your email marketing piece, contact management, the ability to do surveys and more. Email marketing goes from just text to graphically charged HTML interactive pieces. You get to decide.

One of the difficulties in writing about anything to do with Internet marketing is how intertwined all of these techniques and tools are. To do effective email marketing, you have to have a list of contacts. How do you build that list of contacts? That’s another article or group of articles on social media, community and relationship building, delivering good content on your Web site and/or blog and more. All of these build loyalty amongst your readers and customers and helps you to build a strong email list. Readers subscribe via a sign-up box on your site.

Once someone has visited your site, they will often encounter what is known in marketing terms as a “squeeze page”. How it got that name, I’m not sure, but a squeeze page is really just a pop-up box or page that invites readers to subscribe and tells them the benefits of doing so. It is a sales piece and often includes a report, a tutorial, an e-book or something for free to entice them to offer their email address to you. This is the “opt in” point, when the reader agrees to sign-up.

An auto-response is sent to your new subscriber to let them know you’ve received their contact information. It is an email thanking them and letting them know what they can expect from you in the future. Consider adding a video “thank you” in the email along with the normal confirmation link they need to click to confirm their subscription. It is not valid until they do this so be sure the auto-response email is engaging as well!

Obtaining a reader’s email address is gold. They are offering you their permission to contact them with information about your company and what it offers. Create or outsource the creation of strong content and product offerings. Nurture the relationship with your subscribers because they always have the option of unsubscribing, a feature you are legally obligated to provide.

Another tip is to remind your new subscribers to add your email address to their list of contents. This prevents your content, like newsletters or email offers, from heading straight to the spam folder. By reminding them in your auto-responder message to do this you help eliminate that possibility.

Be consistent and original with your content and offerings. Email marketing can be an ingenious tool to engage interested current and potential customers if used correctly and with respect. Never give away your contact information without permission, do not just chronically ask them to buy, use it to let them know what you and your company are up to, to drive traffic to your Web site and to provide legitimate tools and offers to them. Done right email marketing is an effective and inexpensive way to build customer loyalty.