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When
someone signs up to your list, you're not guaranteed to have them as
a loyal subscriber forever. You have to work to keep them - and that
means proving your value.
Another
thing you want to do is make your subscribers so enthusiastic about
being on your list that they tell others to get on, too. Word of
mouth is a powerful force with online marketing.
When
someone you trust as a friend tells you about a viable resource, it
holds more weight with you than if you stumble upon an advertisement,
right? The same holds true for the friends of your subscribers, so
give them something to talk about!
Layout
This is
a very basic step, but it's the foundation you need to know about in
order to allow your subscribers to have the best experience possible
and want to tell others about you.
You can
choose between a highly professional HTML coded autoresponder series
- similar to an offline, printed newsletter - or go with a plain text
email autoresponder.
If your
niche is one where images help your audience, such as crafts or
cooking, then you might want to consider using something where you
can include images in your newsletter.
But if
it's not pertinent to your audience's discussion of topics, it's not
necessary and plain text will be just fine.
What's
more important in terms of layout is to have a consistent feel for
how your autoresponders are navigated. For example, yours might
always look something like this:
- Introduction paragraph (personal, friendly greeting)
- Recommendation of product as an affiliate
- Blog post link and commentary
- Question or survey for your readers
It can
be anything you want - the items listed above are just one example.
You may want to do the same thing every time. Or, you might want to
focus on just one thing each time you email out, and your email will
read like a letter to a friend.
What you
want to do is to be consistent so that when they open the email, they
instantly know it's from you because they've learned your style. Make
it as enjoyable and easy to read as possible, not cluttered and
difficult to find information in.
Frequency
There is
absolutely no cookie cutter frequency that any expert can give you
about how often you should be emailing your list. Every single
marketer has a different style.
There is
also an audience for every type of email frequency. You might be
thinking, "Well I know for a fact you can't email offers every
day and expect to keep your list happy," but that's simply not
true.
There's
an audience who does want to see those daily offers. There's also an
audience at the opposite end of the spectrum who will be appalled
whenever you even hint at a recommendation.
The one
thing you want to keep in mind is that there's no way on Earth for
you to please everyone. You need to find a pattern and frequency that
works best for your business and then weed out your non audience.
As long
as you're providing value to your subscribers, you can be a little
more bold and daring with your frequency. It's when you lack value
and subscribers regard you as an interruption that you begin to have
a problem.
If you
plan to email your list daily, as some people do, then you might also
want to offer a less frequent "digest" version. This can be
a weekly digest that sends out all of the past week's emails in one
autoresponder on a particular day.
Another
thing you want to keep in mind in terms of frequency and emailing to
a list is making sure you keep your name in front of them. If you
stop emailing for 2-3 weeks or longer and let your list go stale,
they'll balk whenever you start emailing again, thinking you're
sending unwanted emails.
Be
consistent with your mailings and don't just email once in awhile
most of the time and then slam them with offers for 14 days straight
during a promotion. Get them used to your style.
Do it
right and you'll have word of mouth that says, "John Doe is
great! He emails me wonderful tips every day to motivate me and then
every Friday I get a fantastic recommendation for the weekend."
Quality
The
quality of your emails is what's most important, and you've read here
about value over and over again. So let's talk about that - how do
you show value to your customers?
The
first thing is to share helpful tips that stem from your interaction
with your audience. If someone emails you asking a question, turn
that email into a blog post (names removed, of course) and help the
others on your list who are struggling in the same manner.
This is
a great way to show your list that you're available to them and open
o doing a bit of hand holding, even if you don't offer one-on-one
coaching packages.
Share
other people's content. Not every link you share should be a link to
something of your own. You can link to other people's stellar blog
posts. Don't be stingy with your audience - show them you're a
thought leader who cultivates good will and shares resources other
than your own
Share
reviews of products. People have a lot of marketers bombarding
products at them. If they've grown to trust you, you'll find that
they often email you to see what your thoughts are on someone else's
products.
One of
the things your list will deeply appreciate is your product reviews.
But a product review and a promotion are two totally different
things. Most marketers don't know how to review - they simply
promote.
What's
worse is, they use swipe emails to promote to their list. So what
happens when you grab a swipe email from an affiliate or joint
venture page, email that to your list, and they open 5-10 other
emails saying the exact same thing?
They
lose trust in you.
It's
okay to use swipe emails as a springboard piece of content so that
you know what important points to hit on, but don't quote it verbatim
or you'll be one of many your subscribers mass unsubscribe from that
day.
Instead,
do a proper implementation review on your blog and link from your
email to your blog post where they can read all of your thoughts on
everything from the promises of the sales letter to your results of
implementation (and everything in between, too).
Share
paid resources as well as free ones. There are free and paid tools
you'll want to recommend to your list. Do a little of each, for
everyone on your income spectrum.
Availability
Previously,
we talked about generating good will with your list by answering
their questions and turning them into anonymous blog posts that the
entire list can share in for learning purposes.
One
thing you want to do to help spread the word that your list is one no
one should miss is to just be there for your subscribers. Get to know
them on a deeper level.
Ask them
what their challenges are and then be prepared when the emails come
in to answer each one individually, one-by-one. Obviously, the more
your list grows, the harder this becomes, but you can also stay on
top of emails and only focus on going to great lengths to answer
questions for which you don't have products yet.
Believe
it or not, many subscribers will either be too shy or not want to
intrude on your personal space - so they won't email you any
questions. They'll simply suffer in silence.
When you
become a marketer who has enough heart to help lift others up another
level, word gets around and you'll have more people joining your
list, buying your products and recommending you to their friends.
Transparency
One
thing your subscribers will love and tell others about is if you're
transparent with them. They love seeing your struggles in addition to
your successes. Whether it's with dieting, earning money, or dating -
they want to feel a connection to you and that means letting yourself
be seen as human.
So don't
think that just because you're leading a niche, you can't make
mistakes and share those trials and tribulations, because you can! In
fact, it will endear you to your list even more and you'll become
known as one of the most genuine marketer that your niche follows.
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