Hello now for the very well worn Internet marketing guru’s phrase ‘the money’s in the list’- it must be possibly the most over used metaphors used at any Internet marketing workshop or seminar. But it’s fair to say email marketing in principal is as sound as it’s ever been and will undoubtedly continue to be the case.

Believe It – “The Money’s In the List”

Build a list of hungry targeted subscribers, develop a relationship of trust with them and then email market to them with quality products and services trying always to maintain their goodwill and trust so that those on your list become repeat purchasers of further product – sounds easy and straight forward –yes? Well the conclusion is very straightforward but the ‘getting there’ is not quite so, here’s why..

Most Internet marketers understand that the concept of email marketing is to send promotion emails through to a selected and targeted list of opted in subscribers to advertise your products or services. This is simple and it gets results providing you follow some simple rules.

Here’s what’s coming

In this article, we’ll look at email marketing basics and also tell you how you can make it do much more. Your emails can make all the difference when it comes to sales, but also to establishing your ‘brand’ profile in whatever niche you operate in- this is a very useful by product of email marketing.

The appeal of Email marketing is easy to appreciate; it costs you almost nothing at all to do. But To get started, you need to build a list of interested people who would like to receive emails from you.  While this sounds easy, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

For example, many people don’t like getting promotional emails and consider them to be spam.  Most people have spam filters in their email which can potentially divert your emails to a trash box where they’ll be ignored.  This presents an extra challenge for Internet marketers who need to make sure their messages get read.

Offer a Free ‘Valuable’ Report

You must offer up a reason for someone to part with their email address and details otherwise you’ll simply struggle to get any to join your list. The most accepted way is to offer something of true value as a legitimate ‘bribe’ if you like – a downloadable report, audio or eBook. But beware it must be a valued giveaway not some poor quality, rubbish material otherwise you’ll get slapped very hard by people joining your list and then immediately unsubscribing because it’s poor quality – and that my friends means almost certainly they’ll not come back.

Don’t Be a Lean, Mean Selling Machine

For this and other reasons, you have no more than a tiny window to make an impact, and the correct one with your messages.  You need to make a positive impression immediately so that your list members won’t ignore your emails.

Carefully Consider Your Message Content

One way to do this is to save the sales stuff for later.  For now, you must immediately build trust because lets be honest these people don’t know you from Adam, why would they buy from you? How do they know your products are good?  The answer is simple they don’t so to build trust give them even more valuable information.  Even better, give them more for free.  People love free stuff, and this is a good way to create loyalty and show that you’re not just a mean selling machine

Earning Trust is Vital

I know for Sam & I we have signed up to various mailing lists from loads of ‘internet marketing gurus’ and the sales emails we get are enormous, loads and loads – now for us most of those I just delete without opening – the ones I open and read are those that come from marketers that in my book have “earnt” my trust – listen up “earnt” is the keyword here.

What’s Your Headline Writing Like?

You should also spend some time writing great subject lines for your messages.  All of your recipients are going to either open the message and read more or click delete based on what they see in the subject line.

This is your even smaller window to grab their attention so make sure that it’s good.  Spend some time on creating something that grabs their attention and gets them interested in finding out more.

Viral Marketing At It’s Best

During your email marketing campaign, make sure that you’re giving them high quality content and keep self-promotion to a minimum.  If you spend your time and effort now giving them quality content they can use, later on when you make your sales pitch, they’ll be happy to buy from you.  Great content will also help them help you by clicking the “forward” button.  When this happens, your email messages go viral.  This means you get even more people reading them and you didn’t even do anything at all.

Your email marketing strategies should be focused on three things.  One is to give them value and establish yourself as a credible authority.  The second is to create helpful messages that they’ll forward to friends.  And finally, you should focus all of these efforts on making sales in the long-term.  It’s important to view things in the long-term when doing this; email marketing is not a quick way to make a buck. And if you forget this your unsubscribe list will grow and grow.

Don’t Be A Waster

Listen how daft is that you put all the effort into getting someone onto your list in the first place then you go and blow it by selling to them all the time – that is just absolutely daft and stupid – don’t do it.

Once you’ve got your list, it just takes a click here or there for your messages to reach a wider audience.  This is a great way to advertise your products or services so start building a list today.  This is the modern-day version of “word of mouth.”

Tony Phelps

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