SECRETS TO RESPONSIVE LISTS
Every online marketer understands
that the best way to generate sales is to have a large email list of
subscribers. After they build that list, however, many marketers begin to
recognize that the list is large, but it doesn't function to create sales. That's
because it wasn't built with the idea of creating a responsive list, and instead focused on quantity instead of
quality.
The time to start building the
right type of list is just as you get started, but even if you've already got a
list, you can still tweak your business processes to get a better response
after the fact.
PAY ATTENTION
TO HOW YOU CREATE THAT LIST
The biggest secret isn't that you
need a huge number of people on the list, but that you want a better conversion
of subscribers to customers. You can do this by paying attention to how you are
creating the list, how you are marketing it, and what is actually happening
when you send out an offer. Here are some basic things you should know about a
responsive mailing list.
l Buying
email addresses doesn't work
For the most part, you can buy
thousands of emails on another
person's contact list and still generate very poor sales. The secret to
creating a good list is to build one up naturally and organically so that
people have a good relationship with you and your business.
l Single
opt-ins can be fooled
You may put out an opt-in list
and be congratulating yourself on the number of sign-ups, that is, until you
find out many are fakes or generated by online bots. Learn how to use a double
opt-in strategy to build a better list.
l Targeted
demographics are better than niches
Demographics tell you the
reasons why people buy, while niches
just assume everyone on your list is interested. You will have better luck by
understanding the psychology of your list, rather than just relying on
categorical niches, for email marketing.
l Automate
what you can
There are plenty of products and
services to help streamline your online business. There's no reason why you
should be struggling
with responding to each and
every email, unless there is some reason for personally responding. Learning
about the technologies and tools available can save you valuable time and
increase your bottom line.
l People
do have a price
It's up to you to figure out
what that price is. It may be that they are willing to subscribe if you give
them a free short report. It might be that they will do it to enter a contest.
It might be that they will reply to an email when they see a savings in a
product they like or when they get your personal attention. Pay attention and
do what works for you.
ORGANIC IS BETTER
Organic, or naturally occurring lists, generally are quite a bit more
responsive than lists created by buying email addresses from other marketers.
The reasons for this are that bought lists can contain a number of bad email
addresses or contain people on them
who are getting so much email from other marketers, that they ignore everything
as spam.
One last reason,
and the biggest reason, to use organic lists is that you can be liable for
sending email to an address that hasn't opted in to having their email published.
When you build your own organic
lists, you know that the person has specifically requested to subscribe to your
list and are genuinely interested in either you or your business.
WAYS TO CREATE ORGANIC LISTS
In
this age of social networking, you will find that it isn't as hard as it
used to be to create an organic list. People are networking more and more
online, and all you need to figure out is how to put the power of the Internet
at your fingertips. Don't just put an opt-in form on your website and expect
that using that simple action will generate a large organic list for you.
People will still have to find your site, and if your traffic is low, this can
be a major stumbling block. The solution is to not just advertise your opt-in
on your site, but to do it elsewhere where traffic that is interested in your
niche congregates. That's where social networking comes into play.
Get in the habit of building an
online presence on various social networking sites. You will have to post a
profile and start networking with people on these sites to hook into potential
customers. Once you have them interested in either who you are or some common
interests (related to what you market), you can start posting updates or links to
things that
you want to
promote to get traffic from these sites back to your opt-in offers.
PLACES TO NETWORK
ONLINE
This site was originally for
college-aged students or young professionals. Now, anyone can join. It has a
very crisp, business- like interface that helps you to maintain a more
professional image for your profile. Join groups, network with like-minded
people, or even advertise within Facebook. It's a great way to find
demographics very quickly.
For people who don't have enough
time to put up a full profile, just hop onto Twitter. Using 140 characters in
each update, you can build up a quick following without too much time involved.
This is more of a business
directory, but also a great place to network.
DEMOGRAPHICS ARE KEY
Internet marketers will tell you
that when you go to set up a website or online business, you have to pick a hot
niche. That is completely true, as without a hot niche, you have less chance of
generating enough traffic to make good sales.
However, when you go to market
that niche via email lists, you will find that you will need to market to
demographics more than to a niche. In other words, you will want to focus on
getting up close and personal with your prospective buyers, instead of just
assuming that they want to buy your products because they signed up to your
list.
WHO ARE THESE
PEOPLE?
Demographics are typically
segregated into a few marketing categories: gender, age, income bracket,
ethnicity, and education level. Of course, you can set up any number of
demographic variables to help you market to your niche, but these are pretty
standard. Just knowing several of these demographics about who is visiting your
site can substantially help you to increase the responsiveness of your list.
How? The trick is to send emails that talk personally to a specific group's
needs and provides that demographic with solutions to the problems that they
see day to day.
For instance, say you are
marketing laptops. You want a demographic of college-aged students or business
professionals who require this piece of equipment. You may also find that they
need to be within a specific income bracket. You can put up surveys on your
site and reward people for identifying who they are and what demographic they fall
into. After that, you take that information and you set up different lists.
The one with college-aged
students gets emails on how laptops can help them to complete assignments in
between class or to take their studies with them anywhere. The email that goes
to business people may target people who are in their cars (like real estate
agents) or who spend a lot of time travelling for business. In that case, the biggest benefit is that
it will increase their work productivity as they get the essentials of their
business travel done.
SPLIT
YOUR MAILING LISTS INTO DEMOGRAPHICS
Once you start to figure out why
people are buying, you can start to separate people into different mailing
lists, according to their demographics. You can set up one list for 18- to
25-year olds and another for those over 30. Next time you want to send out a
promotion for a particular product or service, you will have a good idea what
psychological triggers work best with either list.
TECHNOLOGY TO TRACK
RESPONSIVENESS
Once you start building mailing
lists for marketing purposes, you will find that there are tools and services
out there to help simplify the process.
There's no reason why you have to
learn how to build a responsive mailing list from scratch when you can use the
tools and services provided by others. Just make sure that they are simplifying
your life and not complicating it. Here are some tools or services that can
help you do just that, while encouraging your subscribers to be more responsive.
TOOLS
l The
Double Opt-In List
Instead of a single opt-in, you
can choose to implement a double opt-in where the subscriber must confirm
his/her email address via a response link that gets sent there. This is a great
way to keep out
spammers and
fake email addresses from ruining the quality of your list.
l Check
Open Rates
You should be able to set an
embedded image (sometimes it's even a blank) that pings a server to download
the image when a person opens your emails. This gives you a good idea of how
many people are opening your emails and whether you are getting a good response
to the subject headlines.
l Autoresponders
Set up automatic responders to
certain types of actions people take, like registration or ordering. They can
be for thank-yous, for back-end offers, and for confirmation of the action. The
point is to make sure that customers feel they are being interacted with, even
if you know it's on automatic.
SERVICES
To get the types of tools above,
many Internet marketers go to a service like AWeber.com that will provide email
marketing support using some of these tools and more. They will help people set
up email campaigns using double opt-in lists and autoresponders and will give
you a good idea of who and how many are opening your emails.
They charge by the number of
people on your list with an initial 0 to 500 subscribers being just $19 per
month. They even offer newsletter creation and email templates to help simplify
your campaigns. They are a recognized quality subscriber of email marketing
services and can easily scale to any number of people on your list.
BASIC EMAIL TIPS
How you write your email is just
as important as the tools and services you use to run your email marketing
campaigns. You want to implement good practices to tempt people to respond to
the email and avoid practices that turn people off.
GOOD PRACTICES TO
IMPLEMENT
l Strong,
Attention-Grabbing, Subject Headlines
Sometimes, this is all anyone
bothers to read, simply because they can't avoid it as they hit the delete key.
You want a headline that
pulls the reader in enough to get him/her to open the email when it lands
in his/her inbox.
l Use
A Personal Name, If Possible
If you know
the name of the person to whom you are sending the email from your list
details, be sure to use that within the text. It adds a personal touch and
makes the email more customized.
There is coding you can use to pick up a first name in a database to add
to the content of your emails so that it can be automated.
l Keep
It Short
There just isn't enough time in
the day to read long messages anymore. People will tend to skip large messages
or skim them for the salient points. One way to get past the resistance to
reading the email is just to keep it somewhat short.
l Highlight
Salient Points
Use white space, bolding,
subheadings, noticeable fonts, and bulleted lists to get your message across.
If a person can open your email and quickly determine what you want without too
much fuss, you have a better chance of getting them to click your link offers.
l Add
Your Links/Offers
Make sure your link is easy to
spot and available to click. Tell the reader what you are offering them if they
click on the link. Make sure to sell benefits.
l Unsubscribe Information
As a matter of courtesy, you
should have unsubscribe information in every email you send. It's not because
you actually want people to unsubscribe, but because you don't want to be
accused of spamming them.
AVOID THIS
Do not spam people. This practice
isn't just annoying; it can get you in trouble with Federal regulators.
HOW TO TEMPT THEM TO
RESPOND
There are some offer strategies
that can significantly increase the odds that people will click the link you
provide in your emails and reply to your offer. Giving out some sort of reward
or bonus for taking the action you requested is a good way to motivate people
to respond. It can also be a
great way to
introduce people to your products and services if you do it right.
The minute someone responds to an
offer, they get entered into your sales funnel and you can market to them
further down the line for a sale. While you do want to try to have regular
sales emails, some emails to prospective customers are better set up to
generate leads and introduce yourself to the potential customer. Keeping that
in mind, here are a few strategies to get closer to people who may be seeing
your emails, but haven't overcome their resistance to buy from you yet.
SPECIAL REPORTS
Writing up special reports that
inform people about your niche or about different ways to solve their problems
is a great way to introduce yourself to a prospective client. They are easy to
send via an instant download and you can make subscribing to your email list a
prerequisite for getting the free report. It costs nothing and it generates
good rapport with your prospective clients.
QUIZZES AND POLLS
People love to give out their
opinions or to test their knowledge with online quizzes. Setting a link to a
poll or quiz in an email is easy, and if the subject is interesting enough, you
may find your email gets forwarded to others. Make it a condition to submit an
email address to see the results of the poll or quiz, and this will also
provide you with leads.
FREE 15-MINUTE
CONSULTATIONS
If
you are selling coaching services, a free 15-minute consultation can be
the open door you need to get a larger contract. Whether you choose to do it
via a phone number, chat, or show
call-in, you can use this format to not only introduce yourself, but to sell
your services too. It sets you up as
the expert in a particular topic and is a way to get people to trust you enough
to buy from you, someone they now know.
KNOW WHEN TO SEND
Responsive customers aren't just
a function of technology and slick marketing offers. They can also be a
function of availability. Let's face it; most people are NOT available during
holidays. That's the time they are spending face-to-face time with their
families and relatives and are generally not online. If you create a stunning
email marketing campaign
and roll it out during a holiday,
it is bound to flop. Therefore, knowing when to send and what times are best
for what type of mailing action is crucial to getting better response rates.
THINK WORK WEEK
As an Internet marketer, you may
not follow a standard workweek, but more than likely, your customers do. That's
why it's important to understand the psychology of why some days are better
than others for different actions, and mostly it's because people are following
a standard workweek. Research has shown some clear trend on specific days for
open rates.
FRIDAY IS FUN DAY
Friday rolls around and people
are ready to relax and take in the weekend. They may hop online to see what's
going on and what their friends are doing. That's why Friday has the highest
open rates of any other day of the week. If you want to have a better chance of
people opening your emails, make sure you send them out before Friday.
TUESDAY
It seems Tuesday is the day
Internet marketers send out most of their emails as it has the highest send
rates. Realistically, Wednesday may be a better choice if you want to stand out
from the crowd and get your emails in line for Friday. However, by Thursday,
you will probably start to experience some drop-off in response rates.
WHEN SHOULD YOU
SEND IT OUT?
Does this tell you when to send
out your own email marketing campaigns. Yes and no. It's a good idea to try to use the standard workweek to make
sure to avoid days when it definitely is not a good idea to send a campaign
out, like Sunday. Other than that, you can pay attention to the open rates for
your particular subscribers to be sure they follow similar trends. It may be that their business doesn't work
on a standard workweek and that the general model won't be well suited for you.
So, do some testing of your own.
GETTING MORE REFERRALS
Have you seen the “forward to a
friend” request at the bottom of some emails? That's an attempt to get you to
refer the offer to one of your friends. It's generally well known that
referrals make the best lead-in to a sale because you are more likely to buy or
trust something a friend has recommended than you are to just believe the
marketer. In that view, referrals are really good for business, but are they
good for email campaigns? They can contribute to helping you reach more people,
but they shouldn't be your only email marketing strategy. Here is how to
properly implement a referral-getting email program.
ASK FOR THE REFERRAL
Your reader won't know that you
even want a referral if you don't ask for it. Make it a point to ask for a
referral at the end of your email if you want to use this strategy. Try to
offer some benefit for getting the word out about you or your products.
OFFER DISCOUNTS AND
COUPONS
Offering discounts and coupons
for sign-ups can also increase the probability that someone is going to take
you up on your offer to forward the same thing to a friend. Friends know what
other friends are shopping for and are always willing to forward discounts and
coupons that can save their friends money. Some reward programs are specific to
people who sign up, but when you offer the discount or coupon, you can tell
them to forward to a friend who, when registering, will also get an additional coupon
or bonus.
SWEEPSTAKES &
CONTESTS
Everyone loves a sweepstakes and
word-of-mouths on contests and sweepstakes rank right up there with coupons and
discounts. With sweepstakes, the more chance people have to win, the more often
people will enter. In order to increase their odds of winning or having someone
they know win, people will forward sweepstakes to friends and family to sign
up. Sweepstakes don't usually involve buying anything, just registering for the
prize.
Contests, on the other hand, may
require that you produce something to compete in a contest. The winner of the
competition gets the prize. These are still forwarded to people who may be
uniquely suited to compete, but they are not as open to every person unless the
contest is not skill- specific, but more game-oriented.
TECHNIQUES TO INCREASE
THE ODDS
What's better than sending out
mailings to one email list? Sending out mailings to two email lists. This can
definitely increase the odds that people will respond, just because there are
more people seeing your offers. Where can you find more email lists without
organically building them yourself or buying them? The answer may surprise you,
but your competitors have lists that you can market to if you can convince them
that doing so will benefit them also.
AD SWAPS
Ad swaps are a technique to offer
a one-time promotion to another list as well as your own, typically a
competitor's list. You offer to do the same for them and expose them to your
list for a one-time offer in exchange. If you
both have similar-sized lists, it can be a reasonable way to generate more
subscribers, even if you are giving your competitor some advertising exposure.
There's no guarantee they can capture your subscribers; you are only allowing
them an advertising spot to swap and
it's up to them to convince people to sign up to their site or offers. The same
goes for you too.
The advantage of an advertising
swap is that it costs no upfront cash. If you have similar-sized lists and
similar niches, you will instantly be exposed to just the target market you
want and stand a good chance of gaining new subscribers. You pay by doing the
same for your competitor, instead of fronting cash to advertise. In a tight
economy, doing an ad swap can be a smart thing for your mailing list and for
your budget.
PUT SIGN-UP INFORMATION EVERYWHERE
Even though you may be trying to
market online, the fact is that you can offer your sign-up information in many
different places. You can use the signature line in your emails to add a link
to sign up for information for free offers, quizzes, or polls that entice
people to register. If you have a retail storefront, you can also add a sign-up
sheet by the register to increase the odds that people will find out about your
online services.
KEEP IN CONSTANT CONTACT
Research has shown that people
have to see an advertisement several times before they actually make the
decision to buy. In an email marketing campaign, that means that perseverance
pays off. You may think that because you didn't get a good number of bites the
first time you sent out an offer that it's not a good offer. It may simply need
a bit more repetition to get the message across.
People tend to cozy up to things
that they get more and more familiar with, so try to continue to market
something a few more times before giving up on it. Also, try to keep in
constant contact with the people on your mailing list. If you let many days go
by without a word, you really do lose the attention of the people on your list.
In the worst case, they may already be wooed by your competitors. To keep this
from happening, follow some easy rules.
BE FREQUENT
You don't want to deluge people
with emails that are just sales promotions; however, you do want to be in
constant contact with your mailing list. If you send out an email on Monday
about some hot tips you discovered that can help make your subscriber's life
easier, they may be more willing to open the next one you send, which might be
a product promotion. Be frequent, but don't overwhelm your readers with emails
that are only to your own benefit. That's a sure way for them to unsubscribe
from your list.
BE CONSISTENT
If you say you will send out a
newsletter every first Tuesday of the month, try to keep to that schedule. The
more your subscribers understand the schedule, the more they will anticipate
your next email and be looking forward to what you have to offer. In a way, by
being frequent and consistent and giving your customers things that appeal to
them, you generate an enthusiasm for being on your email list.
BE RESPONSIVE TOO
Finally, the best way to generate
a responsive email list is to also be responsive to your list's needs. When
problems arise, if you are there to provide solutions and generate good will,
they will be there for you when you knock on their inbox to send them a
marketing offer. Try to respond to people personally when they first contact
you so that they have some human relationship with you before you start to
market to them.
SEEK ALTERNATIVE
METHODS
Email is not the only way to keep
in contact with your mailing list. Offer them alternative ways to reach you and
the other people participating on your site. This can be done through social
networking sites, through online forums, and through informational seminars or
courses offered online.
This can also be a great way to
generate word-of-mouth for your business via referrals as friends tell other
friends when some online event or interesting discussion is taking place
online. If you host these areas for discussion and networking on your own site,
your list can grow astronomically bigger overnight with very little effort on
your part. The nicest benefit of all is that it won't just be a big list; it
will also be a very responsive list that participates in the discussions and
networking that are happening on your website. It is a captive audience to
which you can market your products and services.