Just a quick note for you today. I keep hearing about how email marketing is not working as well as it used to work. You know I’m an advocate of email marketing. I honestly feel that if you’re not building an email list, you’re missing the biggest opportunity you have to make your web marketing sing.
Various “experts” are talking about how social media is the new thing though. They’re saying that email doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to work. What gives?
OK here’s the deal. Millions of new businesses are using email marketing now. Not a bad thing. It’s a lot more popular than it used to be. But guess what. Most people suck at it.
That’s why open rates are down across the board. It’s due to suckage, not because email doesn’t work!
Here are a few basics to keep in mind when building an email list:
- Use a serious email marketing service like Aweber – Go easy on yourself. Use an email service that is designed for small business owners. Aweber isn’t the only provider. I just have a rule. I only recommend services I personally use and can vouch for. Period. So I can speak intelligently about Aweber, as I’ve been a customer of theirs since ’06. It makes pretty much everything to do with building an email list and keeping in touch with your prospects a breeze.
- Give people a legit, high value reason to subscribe – Don’t just put a box on your site that says “Sign up for our newsletter”. Why should they? Give them a compelling reason. Offer a free report, a free video, a discount…something you could legitimately charge for. Something that makes it a lock. Give them a reason, and you’ll get a lot more subscribers just because of that alone.
- Make it visible – Put your opt in form in a prominent place on your site. Front and center, top right…somewhere it can’t be ignored.
- Stay in touch like a human being – If you get a list going, but they only hear from you when you’re selling something, or if they only hear from you once per year, guess what will happen. Not much! You started the conversation off by offering em something cool, right? Follow up with more cool stuff. Blogging is the best way to do this. Publish an article or a video or whatever…something that answers a question, addresses a concern, helps them solve a problem.
- Stay in touch like a human being 2.0 – When you send an email to your friends, do you use a professionally designed HTML email template? Of course not. You write a quick message in plain text. Then you click send. When you communicate like a human being, you tend to get responses from human beings. When you communicate like a robot, you tend to get robotic responses (“mark as spam”, ahem)
Questions? Need help with your email marketing? Hit me up with any of your concerns!