Email is a resource that all people share. With Internet cafes and free e-mail accounts, there is virtually no one who does not have an email account. But what people do not realize is that it is a powerful marketing tool.
There are three techniques that you can use when marketing your product or service via e-mail:
1) You can email your sales letter directly to your customers and a link to your order form.
2) You can use the "two-step" approach that involves mailing a letter to your customers with information that will be of interest to them ... and manage them with a link to your actual sales copy.
3) You can email the companies online that deal directly with your audience to discuss promote / sell your product on their sites.
Whichever method you choose, there are some important steps that you must follow if you want your e-mail campaign to succeed:
Step 1: Email a "targeted" list of persons who would be interested in your offer.
Focus your energy on those people who want your product. Those who have opted-in to your mailing list and your customers are all very good prospects.
Step 2: Custo
mize each email
We found that when we personalize our email response rate increases up to 64%.
People are more likely to read e-mail that is addressed specifically to them and to present their email address in the "To:" field.
Step 3: Your Subject Line is key!
Good subject line make the difference between e-mail, which automatically switches the trash bin and e-mail opened and read. The key here is to emphasize benefits.
Some good subject line might be:
"Learn how you can safely lose 30 pounds in 4 weeks!" "Get a better rate on your mortgage use this secret trick!" "Ten things you can use to cut the time you spend doing your taxes by 25%."
Do you know which subject line / header has worked well in many emails, regardless of what they sell? It is entitled "What does it mean for me?" It is the best pulling headline / subject line much - it seems like a wildfire!
Step 4: All of your sales pitch be summarized in the first section.
The first paragraph should refer to your headline, build further excitement and motivate your potential customers to continue to read. Just because you've convinced them to open e-mail with a compelling subject line does not mean that you are home free. You have to build more tension and make them curious about what is coming!
Again, the central focus is on benefits.
Step 5: Test your e-mail on a small percentage of your opt-in list.
This is one of the key techniques we teach, yet so few people actually do it. When they try to increase efforts at your offer you wish to test the headline or opening paragraph, your offer and your pricing. Be sure that you test these three things one at a time, so you can accurately measure the results.
Step 6: Make it easy to read.
Formatting you choose can make or break your marketing campaign. If the email is hard to read, so people are not going to waste their time trying.
Some tips for effective formatting includes:
* Keep your email messages simple and nice. * Avoid technical jargon that the receiver will not understand. * Never write a whole message via ALL CAPS! It looks like you are yelling, it's hard to read, and it is impolite. * Some older email programs do not have "word wrap" so turn "word wrap" feature off and manually hit "enter" at the end of each line. Keep each line at least 65 characters per line.
Step 7: Make sure that your email is easy to answer.
If there is an email address in your message, be sure that "mailto:" in front before it. You should do this because most email programs have a "hotlink" feature that will allow users simply double-click the e-mail address to automatically start a new e-mail.
When a URL is mentioned in an email, it should have "http://" before it. Again, you should do it, because most email programs have a "hotlink" feature that automatically load the browser when the user clicks on the URL.
Step 8: Develop a killer signature file.
An electronic signature - also known as a "signature file" - is three to six line footer that you can attach to the bottom of your e-mail messages and public forum posting.
It tells the person you write to who you are and how they can contact you. You can include your autoresponder address, email address, your office phone number, your company name and slogan, etc ... what you want.
Why avoid using the BCC Field
Many spammers use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) in their regular email client to send their e-mail. They cut and paste their email list into the BCC field that recipients will not be able to see how many people the email has been sent.
The public has caught on to this trick, however, and many people have begun to filter out an email received when their e-mail address will not appear in the "To:" or "CC:" field. The message is supposed spam and automatically deleted.
Email doing the work is done correctly. This is the best marketing tool around.
