Archive | August, 2022

To make your email stand out and get it opened, make it clear that your email is useful to the reader, that it’s specific to what they want or need to know, and that it is also unique.

Here are a few additional tips to help ensure you get the most bang for your email buck…

Identify yourself. Don’t send an email from a generic name in the hope of confusing them into opening it – they’ll just resent you for it. Use your own personal name.

Always send your emails from the SAME name. You’re building brand loyalty, even when that brand is you. So if you keep changing your “from” line, even if it changes from “Bob Smith” to “Robert Smith” to “Bob,” you’re confusing your recipients.

Don’t pretend your email is what it’s not. More and more we see emails that say, “Your order is complete” or “Here is your download link” something similar, when it’s got nothing to do with anything the receiver ordered. This is spammy at best and downright deceptive at worst.

Create urgency SOMETIMES. Urgency works best in moderation. If every email you send screams, “Time is running out!” “The price is going up!” “There are only 3 copies left!” Then you’re going to become like the boy who cried wolf, and you know what happened to him – he cried wolf so many times that when a real wolf actually showed up, nobody came to his rescue because nobody believed him. So the wolf ate him up.

Be brief. Yes, there are times when you have to send a longer email, but also send short ones. Remember, more and more of your subscribers are reading your emails on mobile devices, and in a distracted state. Keep your email messages succinct and to the point.

Email marketing remains one of the greatest forms of direct response marketing in history, and you can significantly improve your results if you keep these simple tips in mind when you prepare to send out your next email broadcast to your subscribers.

You already have a sign-up form on your website – but are you doing everything possible to get as many subscribers as possible? Here are 7 tactics for growing your list faster with simple things that only take a few minutes…

Place your sign-up in as many places as possible – preferably on every page. You might also place it in the header or footer as well.

Get in their face. Your opt-in form should be prominent, in bold colors, with background color, maybe animation, etc. Make the sign-up totally visible and eye-catching.

Use pop-ups. Love ’em? Hate ’em? Either way, pop-ups just plain work. Test to see if it’s best to use a pop-up that appears after a few moments, or when the visitor is leaving the page. Do not have the pop-up appear immediately when they get to your page – you’ll just irritate your visitors and encourage them to click away. People need time to see if they like your website and if they want to subscribe.

Sell it, baby! Don’t just ask them to subscribe, BRIBE them to subscribe. Give them something they would otherwise be willing to PAY for and you’ll have a sure winner.

Get their friends, too. Run offers that encourage your visitors to forward your stuff to their friends or colleagues, and always include an easy way for them to sign-up.

Use social media. Perhaps this should have been #1 since social media can build a list faster than almost any other method. Place a sign up form on your Facebook page, run contests, offer bribes and do whatever is necessary to capture the positive attention of your prospects and get them to join your list.

Cross promote. Whether you’re cross promoting between your own product lines, or with another marketer, send emails to each list you can access offering people a great incentive for joining the other list.

Put a few of these tips into action and celebrate the growth of your email subscriber list!

There’s more to making money from your list than simply getting people ON your list. In fact, it’s once they’re on your list that the real work begins because you not only don’t want them to unsubscribe – you want them to actively look forward to hearing from you, to open and read your emails, and to act on your suggestions.

Your subscribers will stay on your list if you are giving them value in the ways that they need. Tricky, huh? Because how do you know what it is that they need?

The answer is to create a feedback loop so they can tell what they want to learn and what they want to buy from you. This way you can design your products and services in a way that is exactly what your readers want.

You can get this information by using a survey to ask them for their number 1 questions on the niches or topics your list covers. SurveyMonkey.com can do this for you free.

Or you can write a blog post that asks readers to give you information on what they currently need. Be sure to specifically ask them to comment, and reply back to their comments. Commenting back encourages even more readers to comment, because they realize you are really paying attention to what they say.

A third option is to ask them a question in an email. It might be after your main email message, or the entire email might be you asking them to answer your question. Ask them to “hit reply right now” to send you their answer.

Once you know what their biggest questions are, you can write content or offer products that provide them with exactly what they need.

You want to condition your list to work with you, to give you the information you need so that you can help them. Think of it as a team effort – you’re asking what they need, they’re telling you, you’re creating it, they’re giving you feedback, etc.

It’s not about selling and more selling. It’s about offering your subscribers what they need, whether it’s in the form of free or paid content. And as long as you’re doing that, they will not only remain on your list – they’ll also become fans who enjoy reading your emails and buying your products.

Bloggers, email marketers, copywriters and writers of all genres, how do you keep your readers coming back for more? By utilizing that literary gem, the cliffhanger. I’ll show you how to use cliffhangers and teasers to increase your sales, but first a little background…

We’ve all been caught up in a story only to realize it was continued in the next chapter, installment, episode or issue. And wouldn’t you know it, they ended the present installment right when something HUGE was about to happen! Coincidence? Not at all.

When Dallas ended their season with “Who shot JR?” it was all people talked about for the entire summer. Heck, that was over 3 decades ago, and people still refer to it today. But what if they had shown you who shot JR before they ended the season? It’s likely no one would even remember that JR got shot at all.

Just this morning I was reading a work of fiction in which one of the main characters realized he was about to be ambushed when POOF! It was the end of the chapter. And wouldn’t you know it – the next chapter addressed an entirely different plot line of the story, thus leaving me in suspense until I can return to my reading.

It is the suspense that keeps us watching the movie or tuning in each week to the television show or watching the News at 11 because of that teaser they threw at us earlier in the evening that said, “Is your holiday turkey safe to eat? Find out at 6:00,” or “Is the water you’re drinking causing you cancer? Find out tonight at 11:00.”

You can use this technique in your own marketing, as well. For example, when writing a series of emails, end each one with a major benefit of what they’ll discover in the next email. When writing a sales letter, promise to teach them something they really want to know, but first delve more deeply into why they need your product. And when writing blog posts, either throw out a teaser at the end that sends them to another blog post or sales letter, or use the JR method and leave them hanging until your next post.

Cliffhangers and teasers can be your best friend when it comes to getting your emails opened, your sales letter read and people hanging on your every word. And if you look closely, you’ll notice I even deployed this technique in the first paragraph of this article. It got you to keep reading, now didn’t it? 😉