The Most Advanced Techniques for Email Marketing

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If you send emails on a regular basis to your prospects & customers or even if you just send the occasional email to promote one of your products, you'll want to use the techniques found within this manual to increase your email success.

Sending emails to a list of your prospects could possibly be the single best marketing method that you have at your disposal.  Your email list is targeted to your product or service and they know who you are, thus producing the best and most immediate results you can get from any marketing endeavor.

There are several things that you can do wrong in sending emails that could get you in trouble with your prospects, and in some cases, even the law!

You can outsource a lot of the work associated with online marketing to other people, however email marketing is one task that all experts agree you need to personally oversee.  The emails you send out convey your company image more then almost any other thing you can do, so spending the time and effort to get them right is well worth it.

There are specific "best practices" that you can use to get the most out of your email marketing and avoid costly mistakes that some business owners make. 

There is a common phrase in online marketing that says: "The Money Is in the List".  Once you have established a strong opt-in list, you are able to market your product or service much more effectively and in most cases, much faster when you need quick revenue.  However, this is only true if you use email marketing in the right way and provide value to your list.

Outline of the Email Marketing Explained report:

- The Overall Goal of Your Email

- Subject Lines

- The Body of the Email

- Using Email Service Providers (ESP)           

- Auto Responder Systems

- F.A.Q.

The Overall Goal of Your Email

Keep 'em short – Most people don't enjoy reading long emails. In our busy lives, we often scan an email quickly to see if it is worth reading.  Long emails often are not read or are saved for reading later, which we all know are rarely actually read later.  It is much better to have additional information available when they follow an action you give them, such as clicking on a link or calling you directly.

"Sell the Link" – If you want your prospects to take a particular action, such as buying a product, then your goal in writing the email is NOT to sell the product.  To sell a product in an email message would require a very long and detailed email, which most of your prospects would never read.  Your goal is for the prospect to take a particular action that will move them closer to buying the product.  You want your prospect to click on a link that will give them more information.  The link can take them to your website where you can use larger font size and graphics which will help you sell the product in a better format then email could ever do.

So when writing the email, remember that you are not selling the product but rather "selling the link".  Sell the idea of why they should click on the link with benefits they will get from the link itself, not the product. Sell the idea on how easy it is and how they will gain value from their actions. Leave a hint of curiosity so that they need to click on the link to fulfill their need to know more.  

SUBJECT LINES

Just like your goal of the email is to "sell the link", the goal of your subject line is to "sell the email".  Your subject line is the one area that you have to sell the idea of opening your email. 

You only have a limited number of words to convince your prospect that it is worth opening and reading your email, choose your words wisely and sparingly.  Below you will find a list of suggestions to follow.  While almost everyone one of these rules could be broken in some situations, it’s best to keep these ideas in mind.

NOTE: We talk a lot about "Selling" the link or the email or the idea to your prospects. While this sure sounds like we are always selling something, it needs to be. Consider that the average person gets over 50 emails per day and many people get over 100 emails. There isn't enough time to read all of them, so your prospects have to pick and choose which emails they will commit their valuable and limited time to read.

Suggestions for creating the best Subject Lines:

• Using the prospect's name in the subject line has proven to be effective (a good ESP will automatically put their names in the subject line and body for you).

NOTE: On the subject of sending emails you should NEVER, NEVER send out an email to a list of people without using your "Blind Copy" field (unless they all know each other).  If you don't blind copy the list, then everyone on your list can see each others emails. This is what causes SPAM and makes you look like a real idiot.  A good ESP will prevent any problems with this.

The Body of the Email

Okay, so your prospect opened the email, but now what? Now comes the challenging part… keeping them interested.

It is important to realize that people usually scan the first part of an email to see if it is worth continuing.  Then they may scan the entire email to get the basic idea and decide if they want to spend the time reading it in full.

By using short and easy to read paragraphs and pulling their eyes to the important parts of your email you can pass the "scan test" that most people perform on your email before reading it.  

Suggestions for The Body of the Email:

• When done writing the email, walk away and get a drink of water. Then come back to the email with fresh eyes and open it. Scan the email just like you would if someone you didn't know very well sent it to you.  Is it easy to scan through? Where is your attention pulled to?

HTML verses Text Only emails -  This is a debate amongst online marketers but the general thought is that Text Only emails will have a higher deliverability rate.  However, that comes with at the cost of not being able to use pictures, different font features and URL links within your email.  I prefer to use HTML and limit the number of pictures, etc that are used.

Suggestions for The Body of the Email (continued):

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PUT IN ALL CAPS – to redirect the readers' attention every

2-3 paragraphs. The use of questions here is effective.

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- Like I said….

- As I was saying….

- Why? Because…

- As a result….

- Guess what?

- O' yea and lets not forget….

- MAKING A KEYWORD BIG AND UPPERCASE

- Using "*" before and after a keyword or phrase: *Like This*

- Using "quotation marks" before and after a keyword or phrase  

Using Email Service Providers (ESP)

If you have a list of prospects that you email to at least once a month, then you really should use an ESP.  An ESP is the company that manages and stores all of your email addresses.  When sending out an email you would use this service to deliver the emails (most people can't send more then 20 emails at once from their own personal email account).  And most important, they manage all of your "un-subscribes" and "bounces".  A great feature of some ESP's is their built in "auto responder" system which make your life a lot easier when it comes to sending follow up emails.

The SPAM laws are very strict when it comes to sending out emails and if you are convicted of breaking these laws you could face jail time, yes jail time! It is very important to make sure you get it right.  By using a good ESP you can remove this risk by having the ESP manage all of your un-subscribes and bounces.

 
Un-subscribes – When someone wants off your list you need to give them an easy way off by putting an un-subscribe link at the bottom of each email you send out. If they chose to un-subscribe then the ESP will remove them from your list automatically and instantly. Managing an un-subscribe list by yourself can be difficult, especially as you start creating "sub-lists" of different types of prospects.

Bounces – When an email is returned as undeliverable, your ESP will know if it is a "hard bounce" meaning the email address does not exist any longer and the email address will be removed from your list.  Or if it is a "soft bounce" meaning that the person's email box was probably full and you can try to send another email in the future (most ESP's will attempt to send emails 2 more times before deleting it from your list). 

This is important because some companies will ban your emails if you continue trying to send bounced emails. For example, if you continue to send email messages to an AOL email account that doesn't exist anymore (for over 6 months) you can be banned from sending emails to all AOL accounts.

Before deciding which ESP to use, you need to decide what type of list you want to build.

There are 3 Types of Opt-in Lists:

1. Opt-in

2. Opt-in with Notification

3. Double Opt-in

1. Opt-in – This is the most basic way for someone to join your email list.  They simply enter their email address (and maybe additional information) on a form found on your website. If you are using an ESP, you can put a form on your website and leads will automatically be put into your email list.

2. Opt-in with notification – This is similar to the first category except that after your prospect opts-in to your list, they are sent a "Welcome Email".  Within this welcome email you remind them that they signed up to be on your list while you also deliver a free report or anything else you may have promised them.  Most importantly, there is an un-subscribe link at the bottom of the email so they can un-subscribe if they weren't the person who registered their email address (or if they simply changed their mind and now want off of your list).

3. Double Opt-in – When using a double opt-in method, your prospect must first opt-in to your list (like the two examples above) but then they must also open an email that is immediately sent to them and click on a link agreeing to receive emails from your company. This is the strongest way to build your list and the lead quality will certainly be higher. The problem with this method is that many prospects don't open the confirmation email and click on the link.  People get busy, they forget, or they don't get the double opt-in email because of SPAM filters.  Whatever the cause is, around 40% to 60% of your prospects can be lost using this method.  For a beginning online marketer this can be devastating, especially if you are paying for marketing to generate these leads. 

Which Email Service Provider is the best?

It depends on which method you plan to use. I recommend the 2nd method of "Opt-in with Notification".  There are several companies you can use for this but the one that I use and recommend is www.iContact.com – Click on the link for a Free Trial.

If you want to use the "Double Opt-in" method, then the most commonly used ESP is AWeber.  You can only use this ESP if you double opt-in all of your leads.  They claim to have a higher deliverability rate but it comes at the cost of losing the prospects that don't follow through with the double opt-in.  I have used AWeber in the past and they are great to work with www.AWeber.com – They also have a Free Trial.

If you already have an existing email list that you want to upload to your ESP, then you will have to use iContact or another ESP.  AWeber doesn’t allow you to bring in an existing email list (all emails have to originate from the AWeber double opt-in method).

Auto Responder Systems

Using an auto responder system is one of the best things you can do when building an email list.  You can set up a series of emails that a new prospect would receive after they joined your email list.  These emails go out on a scheduled basis without you doing anything.

I recommend sending out 5 or even 10 emails over a 3 to 10 week period of time.  Remember that new prospects haven’t seen your last few months of email communications that the rest of the email list has. You can offer "New" products, ideas or special pricing to these new prospects (you wouldn't want the rest of your list to see again).

Just remember that the prospects on your auto responder system will be getting both the normal emails you send out to the entire group as well as the auto responder emails that are sent automatically. It is best to spread out the emails so they aren't overwhelmed with communications from your company.  

To set up your auto responder emails, you can just use old emails that you've written previously. Your email marketing is automated and you generate sales or leads without much effort.

QUICK TIP:  When you cut and paste an email into your ESP, don use curly quotation or apostrophe marks  ( “ or ‘). When these are used within ESP systems (or web pages, etc), they are converted into weird symbols (’) and make your email difficult to read. Just make sure you retype those symbols within the ESP system and they will be changed to straight lined quotation and apostrophe marks (" and ').

F.A.Q.

"How often should I send emails to my list?"

Everyone has different opinions on how often to send emails to a list.  There are some email marketers that send emails to their list every single day.  Some send out emails every 1 to 2 times per week while others only send them out once every month. I think sending out emails almost every day is too much and people start to ignore your emails, or just un subscribe. However, if you don't send out emails at least once a month then your list will forget who you are and think your emails are SPAM.  To continue a good relationship that gets results you'll want to email at least once a month, preferably once a week. 

"Should I buy/rent an email list?"

There are "list companies" that will sell or rent you a huge list of email addresses for a particular niche industry (real estate brokers for example).  The prices and quality of these lists vary depending on which company you use.  Although I don't currently use these services, I have in the past and know how they work.  I have found that most lists are very low quality and not worth the money. You can also run into SPAM issues when using these lists.

"What are the best days and times to send out emails to my list?"

It is commonly suggested that the best days for sending out emails is Tuesday and Wednesday.  I have broken this rule and have still had good results, although I have found that Monday is generally not a good day because people are so busy. You can send out emails over the weekend if you think that most of your prospects give you their personal email address (not their work address).  For example, if you are selling large copy machines for businesses, most of the email addresses you have a probably work emails and the weekend wouldn't be a good time to send out an email.  I like to send emails out around lunch time so people read their emails before or after going to lunch, but I have also broken this rule and have had good results.  You’ll need to test various times and days for your particular list.

"What if I don't have a website but I want to collect email addresses and start email marketing?"

You don't need to have an actual website to be able to do email marketing.  If you have a list of emails from your prospects then you can use these techniques with great results. Instead of "Selling the Link", you would just ask the prospects to call you for more details.  You can collect email addresses on paper lead forms then manually enter them into an ESP or excel spread sheet.

For those who don't have a website or don't know how to put an opt-in form on their site, I'd suggest you see www.MarketingMakeoverGenerator.com .  You can set up an opt-in squeeze page within 1/2 hour (with video or audio if you want) and they also have a built in auto responder system to send out follow up emails.