In this article you will learn all about one of the best ways to build your online business – which is through email marketing. But before we dive in, let’s take a look why email marketing is so effective for small businesses such as yours.
Email marketing is easy to leverage. It is one of the easiest and fastest ways to harness the power of the Internet for your business and make extra sales. Why? Because all you do is compose an email, customize it to suit the reader (their first name or last name), and click the broadcast button to reach thousands of people… instantly! Within seconds, everybody on your mailing list knows all about your special offer or new service.
Email marketing is highly scalable. Unlike an ‘offline’ business where the more customers you have, the busier you are, in email marketing, it is much easier because regardless of the size of your mailing list, whether it is 100 or 10,000, all you need to do is click broadcast and everyone on the list gets notified – all for the same effort! It just takes one click, no matter how many people you send an email to.
Email marketing is highly targeted. One of the reasons why Email marketing is highly effective at getting sales is because the recipient of the email gets a targeted promotion seemingly created just for them. You are marketing directly to the customer through their PERSONAL mailbox. Not only will you grab their attention firmly, they will tend to respond with the right buyers mind-set because they are marketed to directly (unlike other advertising where the buyer might not be in the frame of mind to buy things).
Email marketing is personal. Autoresponders allow you to customize the email in such a way that it allows you to connect with the subscriber individually. The more personalized your email, the better the result (treat it as though you are writing to your best friend).
You can automate many tasks with your autoresponder. For every new opt-in subscriber, you can time your emails so that you can build a relationship with every new opt-in subscriber. You decide what to send to them, when to send it to them and the frequency between each email.
Email marketing acts as an excellent way to pre-sell your products and services. You might not be able to cram a long sales letter into your email, but at least you can pre-sell your subscriber and lead them to your blog, sales letter or website to check out what you have to offer and set them in the right frame of mind before they evaluate what you have to offer.
Now that you can see how effective email marketing is, let’s show you some of the techniques on how to build stronger bonds, in-still stronger credibility and increase your opt-in list response with relative ease… all with email marketing!
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
Developing The Competitive Edge
One of the most important things you must do to achieve success online is to build a solid relationship with your subscriber.
Building a relationship is important because it can make the difference between making a sale and losing it to your competitor.
You see, just like in real life, if I had to choose between a friend who provides a service like car repair and a stranger who offered the same service for the same price, I would choose to use my friends services every time.
Why? Because I’d rather give HIM my business compared to a total stranger.
That is how email marketing will work for you. Online marketing is very competitive and you will have a lot of competition from other businesses in your niche. So when two marketers are promoting the same product, having a strong rapport with your subscribers will give you a competitive edge and the sales will come to you rather than them.
Take this scenario as an example:
During a massive launch online where high-ticket items are being sold and tons of marketers everywhere are sending emails to their subscribers, most marketers would be offering bonuses to ‘bribe’ their customers to buy through their affiliate link.
Sometimes, 3 or more would be pitching the same offer with similar value. So the question you should be asking yourself is if you were in the shoes of your subscriber, why should your subscriber buy from YOU instead of other marketers?
Once again, if you have built a strong relationship with your subscriber, they will be on your side and will chose to buy from you instead.
One of the best ways to build relationships with your subscriber is to strengthen the rapport between you and your customer.
Here are a few ways to achieve that:
• Keep in touch with your mailing list often. Don’t mail them only when you need to promote a product or service.
• Ask about their needs and concerns. Use questionnaires and surveys to get them involved. Ask them what they want you to provide for them to help them with whatever problem your niche solves.
• Send them gifts sometimes. It could be in the form of free reports, tutorials, checklists, discount coupons or even free samples.
• Be personal. Let them see your human side or your personal life. It sure beats dry, stale Emails that talk about product launches all day.
• Be educational. When you impart something of value to your subscribers, they will see you as an expert and will be more inclined to listen to what you say. This will come in handy when you want them to ‘listen’ to you and buy whatever you are selling.
HOW TO ACHIEVE STRONGER CREDIBILITIES
Establish Yourself As An Authority
When you take a look at the average person on the street, you may think that there is nothing special about them – until they step up on a podium and start talking about a subject that they
know inside out with an air of authority surrounding them. Then you sit up and take notice.
If you want to succeed at online marketing for your small business, you must be able to instil stronger credibility to your subscribers by establishing yourself as an authority in your niche market.
For example, whether you are in financial services or a wedding planner, you must let your subscribers know about your credibility either before or after they opt-in to your mailing list. These rules apply to whatever kind of business you are involved with.
Here are a few tips on establishing your credibility:
Wherever possible share your qualifications and list which professional trade bodies you are a member of. List the type of clients you have dealt with, include photos, preferably before and after pictures. Relate experiences of how you have helped your clients.
Let others tell the story. It would be better to let others sing your praises – especially in the form of testimonials and reviews.
Use E-courses To Build Credibility Over Time
People may not be impressed at the first glance. Sometimes, it takes a few emails for people to recognize your capabilities.
One of the ways you can build your credibility over time is to write an E-course or a newsletter that will be sent to your subscriber’s email over a period of days or weeks. It must be something educational – something that will establish you as an expert on the subject.
You can configure your auto responder to send an E-course once everyday, every two days or as a weekly newsletter. So long as the subscriber reads your educational material over a period of time, you can slowly work your way into the heart of your subscriber and stamp a firm impression in their minds.
INCREASE YOUR OPT-IN RATES
Crafting An Excellent Squeeze Page
If you want to increase your opt-in rates, here are a few principles you must apply to your squeeze page:
• Use compelling arrows to inspire visitors to take action. Graphics and aesthetics make all the difference!
• Create an eye-catching E-cover for the special report or E-book you are giving away. If you are giving away an audio Interview, you can show a picture that displays an audio CD orDVD to increase the perceived value of the product people are downloading in exchange for their Email address.
• Use a powerful headline to grab people’s attention.
• Use check boxes to inspire people to get involved with the benefits of your free product.
• Remember to add a disclaimer below the opt-in box to reassure people that they are not getting spammed or that their Email address will not be used for unscrupulous purposes.
COMMON MISTAKES SOME SMALL BUSINESSES MAKE
What You Must Avoid At All Costs
If you want to build a solid relationship through emails, you must be very careful NOT to commit these email marketing ‘sins’:
Spamming! Never, ever ‘spam’ your mailing list. Even though they have given you permission to email them, that doesn’t mean that you can send them emails and sales pitches on a daily basis. Learn to send emails at strategic intervals.
Mailing them only when you are selling something. No one wants to be on your list if all you ever do is sell, sell, sell! The reason people join your mailing list is because they want something of value for being on your list. If they fail to see your value, they will unsubscribe even faster than you can say, “opt-out”!
Rushing your Emails. When you are doing a promotion, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is that you rush your emails to the point that the mistakes are spotted by most of your subscribers. Having too many mistakes in your email will make you look unprofessional. It is quite embarrassing when you spell a person’s name wrongly (the word {first_name} appears instead of the subscriber’s real name) or worse… screwing up your affiliate links!
Not mailing your list for a long time. The opposite of spamming. If you don’t keep in touch with your subscribers for a long time, they will tend to forget who you are. And that will severely damage the relationship between you and your subscriber.
Not relating to your subscribers. When every new product launches, there is a tendency to mail your subscribers all the time while forgetting that the product doesn’t relate to the subscribers at all. You don’t want to sell cat food to people who don’t own a pet!
The Speed Of Trust
In a nutshell, building relationships through email marketing is all about trust. The more a person trusts you, the easier it is go get them to do what you want them to do.
It may take a long time to build trust but remember that trust can be shattered overnight.
Always put yourself in the shoes of your subscriber and give them as much value as possible and you can be sure email your way to victory!
What You Need To Know Before Sending Your Next Email…
So you’ve built a mailing list. Whether you have 100 subscribers… 1000 subscribers… 10,000 subscribers… or even 100,000 subscribers…
If you don’t know how to get your subscribers to open your email, you will generate dismal results and income from your email marketing campaigns no matter how big or small your mailing list is!
Here’s what you need to understand, especially if you operate in a highly competitive niche: since it is normal for Internet users to subscribe to multiple mailing lists, it’s also normal for your subscriber to wake up the next morning and find his or her Inbox full of emails from the mailing lists they are subscribed to.
True or true?
With so many emails – including yours – screaming out for your subscriber’s attention, they will go into the “judge, jury and executor mode”.
So what happens next?
Emails get deleted… even before they are opened and read!
As long as your email headline doesn’t grab your subscriber’s attention, there’s a 95% chance that your email will get deleted, too… even before your subscriber would open it!
And when this happens:
• Your open rate goes down,
• Your click through goes down,
• Your sales go down too!
New Approach. New Tactics.
As an experienced email marketer who has been using emails to reach my subscribers for years, I spotted a huge difference in the trend. What used to work a year or so ago no longer works today.
Let us show you exactly what amazing results you can get from email marketing. We know how to write compelling headlines that encourage your mailing list to open the emails immediately. We can write engaging content that increases customer loyalty and makes your subscribers look forward to receiving your emails.
Every time one of our emails is sent out to your mailing list, it will result in sales for you and your business.
Contact us today to find out more details. We look forward to hearing from you.