The Most Effective Ways To Execute E-Mail Marketing

E-mail marketing is a technique that all Internet marketers should perfect if they hope to maximize their efforts and earnings. No other online marketing technique helps you establish authority and trust faster and more effectively than e-mail marketing. As long as you follow these simple steps and hints and as long as you are vigilant and you strive never to give up, you will soon be performing and earning just like an e-mail marketing expert.

E-mail marketing Goals

Take a look at your inbox. Do you have any emails from businesses or other marketers? Unless you are very protective of your e-mail address, you probably have more than a few opened right now. You may have an e-mail from your local pet store letting you know that they have dog food on sale. You may have one from an online marketer who is trying to sell you an e-book or you may have one from a local restaurant trying to get you to come in this weekend for a free dessert.

No matter where all of those e-mails originate from, they all have one goal: to get you to come in or otherwise spend with that particular business. Not all e-mail marketing messages are sales-related. Some offer tips, updates, hints, news and other information that is targeted to the overall niche and interests of the subscribers, but ultimately the very purpose of e-mail marketing is to increase business and the bottom line.

Study E-Mails that Come In

If you want to learn how something is done, it always pays to watch the experts in action. Pay attention to a few of those e-mail marketing messages coming in. If the company is large, such as a mega-store chain or a restaurant chain, there are likely MBAs and other highly-educated marketing professionals behind those messages. Pay attention to how they are executed and take plenty of notes. You never know what you’ll learn.

Building a List

You can’t send out any e-mail marketing messages until you have a list of subscribers. There are various ways you can go about collecting contact information from your prospects and customers.

• Ask for the Information: The next time you do business with a client or customer, ask for their e-mail address and add it to your e-mail marketing subscriber list.
• Build a Squeeze Page: A squeeze page is a single page online that is designed to capture valuable information from your web visitors. In this case, we want a name and an e-mail address. It is usually common practice to offer a free gift in exchange for the information you want. This could be an e-report that offers targeted tips your prospects can use, a video series, a discount on your latest products or services, or whatever else you feel like giving away. The more valuable the free offer, the more e-mail marketing subscribers you’ll earn.
• Be Creative: Think outside of the box and think of ways to get your hands on the email addresses of your primary audience. You have many tools available, including social media, video marketing, e-report marketing and much more. Use all of these to your advantage and get as many names and e-mail addresses as you can so that you can build a list a mile long.

E-Mail Marketing Platform

At first glance, all of this list building and communicating with your list subscribers can seem rather daunting. The entire process of e-mail marketing will appear much easier when you find an e-mail marketing platform to handle all the heavy work for you.

There are both paid and free platforms available, but all of them will offer the basic functionality. The functions most basic users are privy to usually include list building, list management, the plugging in of pre-programmed e-mail messages (called autoresponders) and split testing. For right now, we are only going to focus on list building and the messages. Once you have that down, the rest is downhill.

Autoresponders

When you have your e-mail marketing platform chosen, you will want to create an opt-in form using the platform’s opt-in creator. Place this opt-in form on your website and your subscribers will be able to join your list automatically. You can also manually submit e-mail addresses as you receive them.

Once you start building a list, you will want to create three primary autoresponder messages. These include:

1. The Thank You autoresponder: This is the page that your subscribers are sent to after they opt-in. You should thank your subscribers for their submission and let them know that you will never spam them or abuse their information. You should also let them know what to expect. Let them know how often you’ll be e-mailing them and what they’ll get in each e-mail.
2. The Download: this is the download page where your subscribers will receive their e-book or e-report, or whatever else you have decided to give away free in exchange for the subscribers information.
3. The first E-mail: Your e-mails should educate and inform, first and foremost. You are attempting to build a reputation as the authority in your niche and you’re trying to establish trust between you and the subscriber. Don’t become a salesperson right off the bat. Help your subscribers achieve their goals and they will reward you.

If you start off the business relationship by appearing helpful and concerned with your subscribers’ primary goals as they relate to your niche, your e-mail marketing open-rates will accelerate and your overall revenue will explode.

Right now you might be asking how you make money from e-mail marketing. Once you establish yourself as the authority, once you establish trust and once you have a good chain of autoresponders started, you can start recommending your products and services. If you’ve done your job, your audience will appreciate your suggestions and will jump on whatever offer you provide.

Never abuse your audience’s trust, only suggest products and services you believe in and never stop those autoresponders from going out. That is how the experts engage in e-mail marketing. Emulate their efforts and see just how effective this form of marketing can be.