Hi and welcome back in previous posts on email marketing, I’ve covered the RIGHT & WRONG ways to communicate with your list, but today I want to tell you what I consider to be the BEST way and the real secret to your email marketing – after all you’ll have worked very hard to build your list, getting your auto responder system set up then writing your messages, you need to give them the best opportunity you can to get them not only opened but read and longer term responded to, so here we go….
The Best Way
It’s all about developing and building TRUST – this is the key requirement. Consider it this way who do you buy from? What makes you choose one supplier over another? In many instances it’s because you like the person, you believe the person or your friend s or family have told you ‘go on you can trust them’.
Now just take a minute & truly get you head around that – it should be a light bulb moment for you because it’s so obvious but so often overlooked.
What’s the first thing you do when you need a builder, plumber etc – ask your friends and family because you TRUST their judgment
So now do you see what your email marketing has got to do, what it needs to convey and the structure you need to adopt??
How do I do that?
To do this you need to use good and effective methods to go about this and use a subtle approach as well. Trust is earnt over time and yes it does take time to develop. Think about the people you trust in your everyday life – that trust has been developed and grown over time –
Top tip 1 – don’t rush it.
Top Tip 2 – think through the psychology of trust. People need to get to ‘know’ you, that’s how you establish trust. So when you’re writing your emails for your list get your personality across, who you are, what you are, what you do, your hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations – if you like put flesh on the bones of the mental picture you are drawing of yourself for your reader.
Top Tip 3 – you’re unique, your experiences and your thoughts – use that to really establish a rapport. Be honest and up front
Top Tip 4 – offer great value. Now this sounds hard but bear in mind knowledge is power and has value. If you are operating in a niche you know well chances are people will ‘value’ information you can impart to them
When your emails are informative and useful to the recipient, they will not just read it but also clock in their brain ok that was great, I like this person… You can send articles, quizzes, or just tips on how to achieve certain results. When your list realize the emails they are receiving are offering them something worthwhile such as knowledge or information about a particular niche subject which interests them, they are much more inclined to spend time reading your emails and will in actual fact be looking out for further ones with interest.
So when do I pitch my list?
This is a tricky one because all markets are different but certainly for my wife Sam & I we sent a whole series of auto responder email messages probably 10 -12 before we even considered a sales pitch. All offered up worthwhile information which we hope and have since discovered was found to be useful to people on our list
How do you know that?
Well we have had very few unsubscribes at all (good sign!!) and once we started offering product we had sales within days so it stands to reason that developing trust had worked for at least some which is great.
So to recap once you have gained some level of trust or confidence from your readers, you can start subtly pitching whatever it is you intend to sell to them. These pitches can come in form of recommendations and advice pointing them to a product or website.
You should always keep your pitches subtle, avoid language which makes outrageous claims and is full of blatant advertising. Always apply the principle of ‘give first’. If you give something of value before making a request in return, you will achieve better results.
As internet marketers we need and should know that the buyer wants to know with confidence that he/she is going to receive terrific value for their money and that should they believe the product falls short of expectations that a full money back guarantee is in place. Again this is where the trust element comes in – a customer needs to feel confident that if all else fails their money will be returned.
Top Tip
Always respond to dissatisfied customers immediately – don’t quibble over refunds – just do it. It always pays dividends in the long run.
Ok so that’s it for now covering in straightforward terms once you’ve built a list how to market to it. However I realize some of you will not know how to start building your list so I suggest you take a look at a great product that Sam & I have used, continue to use and wouldn’t be without – it’s called New Power List Building and it takes you by the hand through the process of building your list in a simple and straightforward manner, plus there’s a Money Back Guarantee, so you’ve nothing to lose!
A quick note: Don’t forget your list must be targeted to the subject matter you intend to mail them about i.e. there’s no point sending stamp collecting tips to a list you’ve developed about snowboarding yes I know an extreme example but I’m sure you get my point.
Obviously when you gather and build your list of email subscribers through your own website, you’ll know you have a targeted list. That why for my money I wouldn’t buy a list which has been sourced from who knows where, anywhere, Why? Simple if you do, and I recommend you don’t, you should not be surprised if 95% would totally ignore your mail and the open rate would be terrible. Plus bear in mind your end game you want your emails open, but opened by the right people who have an interest in what you’re writing about and are therefore interested enough to potentially buy.
Tony Phelps
