Category: Advertising & promotion

Elements of a Responsive Subscriber List

Reaping rewards

Every online business that provides great service to generate satisfaction among its customers will likely reap rewards from the time, energy and dollars it invests in such an effort; because as each and every customer derives satisfaction from products and/or services provided by a particular business, there is a very good chance the customer will become a returning customer, buy again and, in many cases, recommend that business – your business if you provide the satisfactory product or service – to other people which, in most cases, could generate additional business for you and your site.

And as more traffic is driven to your site, you will certainly have the opportunity to entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list (opt-in or subscriber list). This is the type of list that invite website visitors to participate in free information and product campaigns in exchange for their agreement to receive promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and other such materials designed to keep them updated about your site or your product niche. Such promotional materials are sent via email to list members at different time intervals.

When using email as the vehicle with which to market and advertise your products and services, as well as your brand, you eliminate the need to incur high costs and expenditures, because – let’s face it – mail is free, and if you can manage to create your own promotional and advertising messages you can also save a bundle of money. With an opt-in or subscriber list, you can be pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by subscribers and not simply deleted. Since they have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it, you should have no problem getting them to open and read your email messages.

Promote to a captive audience

This also means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about the products and services you offer, as well as any new products, promotions and special-deal campaigns you are having. Of course there is always the increased chance that existing subscribers will forward your new product and special-deal information to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site. Keep in mind, though, that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they signed up for or expected. So it is important to insure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing strategies while you keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs.

In the following paragraphs we discuss a few ideas that could help you build a list of subscribers who might just be as eager to receive your promotional material, as you are eager to send it to them.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun while trying to use a little creativity; but not too overly artsy; but build around what your product/service is about. For example, if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for; this way, you can stay one step ahead of them all the time, and you will be their bearer of new (great) tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they know you always have fresh and new things to share with them…

…More list-building ideas

Write good articles that can be very informative , but light at the same time. If subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will put in your newsletter to read some more; and you can also provide articles designed to connect with many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something which consists of both.

Are you wary about quality articles because you don’t like writing? No problem, because there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters. The money you pay for your articles are will be justified by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from sales you will get.

Create and send an ebook to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free! You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers; things like manuals and guides, for example, among many other things. This ebook could be used as a reference for many of your subscribers.

Share this ebook with everyone; even other sites. But just make sure that they don’t change the links in your ebook that were created to drive traffic to your site. If you want, you can always get others who specialize in article writing to write them for you just like they were your own articles. Your investment once again will be justified by the great marketing this will generate.

The eCoupon discount

Add ecoupons to your newsletters that will give them access to special discounts; and put a control number in your ecoupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive the newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.

All that having been said, if your subscribers can derive benefit(s) from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them. Just don’t flood your mailing list with promotional messages, links and banners that will annoy your subscribers.

To Evaluate Your Email Marketing Business

The EM business model

To say that email marketing can be a very effective method by which to reach target audiences around the world is most certainly an understatement, since the email marketing business model, when appropriately implemented, has been proven to do just that. However, not everyone who attempts to use email marketing as an additional income stream to augment their brand will acheive success. Reason? Failure to implement the email marketing plan! In other words, an individual’s email marketing efforts may not result in him / her reaching full potential unless s/he invests the time, energy and money needed to evaluat his / her email marketing strategy.

During this evaluation process you, as a motivated email marketer, must be able to determine whether or not your email marketing efforts are helping you to reach your goals during a particular email marketing campaign, as well as after that campaign has completed. Likewise, during the same evaluation process you can also determine if the email marketing is having an adverse affect on your business. That having been said, we will discuss a few of the reasons why evaluating your email marketing is as important as any other aspect of this Web-based business model, and will likely result in the kind of success many email marketers envision when they start out.

Ineffective email marketing

Consider an email marketing campaign which is not effective because it does not reach members of the intended target audience. This ineffectiveness can be attributed to an opt-in/subscriber list which does not consist of subscribers who expressed a high interest in the particular product, service or topic originally offered or discussed on the marketer’s website. Such failure and ineffectiveness result when business owners neglect to ensure that their email subscriber lists include recipients who are extremely interested in the products or services they offer.

Another group of business owners that often get less than optimum results from their email marketing efforts are those who take shortcuts by purchasing large email lists, since the recipients of their marketing emails are simply not interested in the products or services being offered. In this scenario the email marketing is likely to generate very few sales or website visits; but a reevaluation of the email distribution list to include recipients who are interested in their products or services will likely result in significantly more sales and website visits.

Let’s now consider a situation in which email marketing is being construed as spam by the recipients. In this scenario, if the email marketer has taken precautions to ensure that emails are reaching members of the marketer’s target audience, but emails still seem to be over-the-top sales pitches, the members of that particular subscriber list may view those emails as spam and not take the advertisements seriously. If this occurs, then members of your email distribution list may be more likely to seek out a competitor when they are in need of products or services, rather than making a purchase from you.

The nature of evaluation

Evaluating your email marketing efforts can be formal or informal in nature; but if you have specific business goals in mind you might want to consider using whether or not you are on the way to meet this goal as an indication of the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. If you’re interested in reading about more detailed and proven email marketing strategies, techniques and success stories, take a look at this email marketing trend setters website.

Alternatively, you can evaluate your email marketing efforts by soliciting customer feedback, by asking customers for their opinions about the email marketing campaign and whether or not they were compelled to make a purchase because of the content, the advertisements or some other element. Based on this information you should have a good indication of whether or not your email marketing is effective. If it is not effective you should consider making changes to create more interest in your products, services or brand.

Regular evaluation

Changes you make should reflect the feedback you receive in order to ensure that you are not making changes which will create even less interest from the members of your target audience. To say that evaluating your email marketing strategy on a regular basis is important is a tremendous understatement. Regularly evaluating your email marketing is not only important, it is critical to the success of your business. Failure to evaluate your email marketing strategies can have adverse effects ranging from not producing results to causing you to lose customers to your competitors.