Effective Email Marketing or “The Art Of The Offer”

INTRODUCTION

I have read so much recently about email lists used for internet marketing, and there seems to be a new post somewhere every day on how it is “dead” or no longer relevant.

Based on a lot of offline sales activities and experience over the years, I am sure that this kind of talk is malarkey, intended more  to get a reader to pull up and read the post of the writer, as opposed to any serious belief that email marketing is dead…

From my personal experiences I have seen it is just the opposite…

I think email marketing is more important than ever!

Important in that , if done incorrectly, it loses relevancy for the receiver, does not result in the desired action, and causes you to fail at online marketing!

On the other hand, if done correctly with forethought, it can lead to just the opposite: More desired actions that are taken by receivers of your mails, more sales, and more profits for you.

This is part one of a three part series on the subject of email marketing. As I was putting the whole training together, I realized that breaking it up was a more rational approach,  since it is quite long and detailed. I hope you enjoy all three segments, take the tome to go through them carefully, and can take something away from my effort that will add to your own online marketing program!

So, without further ado, let’s get started…

 

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Email Marketing is More Than A List

I think it comes down to a statement as simple as this (My words…):

“It is important HOW and WHEN you present your information that makes email marketing either relevant or not, and successful or not!”

Email marketing has been relevant since its infancy, and remains so today. Pay no attention to those who may say otherwise, it remains a powerful way to establush and build a relationship with your leadsI

For me it goes back to that age old adage in the online marketing world:

Here’s my thoughts and quote on the subject: 

“The money is in the list, it’s true…BUT the ART of knowing HOW to develop and use the list is what CREATES the money, NOT the list in and of itself, is the magic “juice” of email marketing . The list is just a bunch of contacts.”

Ok now that you have an inkling on what we are looking at with email markering, let’s drill down some more in this first part of the training today…

 

What Is The Goal, Tell Me Again PLEASE

The true goal of having a list is to build a relationship with each member of that list. This is not a relationship in the traditional sense of the word, as in becoming friends or more, rather it is a professional one.

In all my years of selling offline, which were considerable, this relationship building was a key focus. Of course this was not done through emails much in the days when I was selling $4 million dollars of product a month, because email itself was a relatively untapped resource at the time, it was in its infancy.

The same way that we built the relationship back in those days so long ago now, through face to face contact on a regular basis, is the best way to approach how you frame your mails and campaigns (series of related emails) to your list of subscribers – you creat the mails with the planned intent of providing value,  gaining their trust, their confidence, and eventually a sale, and then follow on sales.

You have to use many skills to do this properly, and I am going to mention a few below. These can be incorporated individually or in totem, but I urge you to have a good hard look at each and see if they would help you and your online marketing program.

 

Just What is Email Marketing?

We are going to start at the beginning and, step by step, go through the process, from making an offer, to ways to build the relationship, and finally how to monetize that relationship in a moral and responsible manner.

This is a unique kind of advertising that gives you the ability to invest one time to get a clients contact information, and then connect again and again with that client at little to no additional cost.

Doesn’t that sound good?

The only “costs” other than an investment in an autoresponder tool to organize your mails and campaigns are your own efforts to do this in an intelligent manner.

The time spent creating the planned marketing campaigns that you can send out to the contacts again and again are an additional hidden cost, but remember you are investing in yourself and your business.

That one time subscriber to your list can literally make you money for years and years if you do this well enough….potentially for a lifetime.

It is that powerful!

This brings me to this thought:

“So Email marketing is dead? I don’t think so!” 

Think about yourself and your online activity and email inbox…Likely you are subscribed to many online marketers who send you seemingly endless email marketing campaigns with offers for the next big thing they want you to buy.

I know I get them all the time. In my quest to gain knowledge on how this online marketing differs from offline and traditional (for me) marketing, I was buying quite a few products that promised “instant cash” or “thousands of leads” etc. Largely a waste of time, many of those products and tools…

Well now you are going to join those herds of sellers sending emails.

What will be the difference though is that you will do this in a more planned, measured, and moral manner than many you are competing against.

You are going to get better open rates for mails you send, and even better, you will have a higher action taking rate and conversion rate too…

You are going to offer value to these leads by sending relevant information that they need and can use. You are not going to hard sell all the time, not even half the time.

This concept is just like offline marketing I did face to face. You have to spend time with the clients using email marketing through sending a series of emails that build the trust and confidence first, and only then present what you are promoting or selling.

This is then, the art of the offer I speak of in the title, and the whole of what you should take with you after reading through this…

Your goal should be…

Setting up and operating an ethical and moral program where you are able to provide valuable and relevant information to your subscribers, building a relationship with them, and then offering products that meet the high standard you have set for your business.

 

How Does Email Marketing Work?

The steps involved are really not complicated (and this screws some people up because it is NOT complicated) when you look at the process.

Here are the initial steps:

 

Step 1 – You ask people to join your mailing list in exchange for something of value that is relevant to what they need  (i.e. a tool, a newsletter, a guide, some software, free training, etc).

I have training on this aspect of the email marketing process if you are interested…You can find it HERE:

===> LEAD MAGNETS TRAINING <===

 

 

Step 2 – They agree and opt-in (share) their name and email address, normally accomplished through an opt-in page.

NOTE: If you are interested in how to create opt-in or bonus pages for your lead magnets that will draw in subscribers, please see the following two articles:

 

Landing Page Monkey A Relook for 2016

===> LPM and LPM Review and  Bonuses <===

 

Commission Gorilla

===> CG Review and Bonuses <===

 

 

Step 3 – They confirm through a follow up email that they take action on,  confirming  they want to be a member of your list, and you then have permission to offer them additional information and ultimately market your promotions to them through emails.

NOTE: I will go into a lot more detail on how you will set this up in part three of this training. If you want to see that portion now, please CLICK HERE…

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At that point you now have their permission and opportunity to connect to this person, and this permission remains in place, as long as you keep a good standing relationship with them. This means you can contact them over and over again.

Think about that. In the old days, if I wanted to follow up with an established client, I had to call him, send him information, or go to his location to see him. Thank goodness these days are gone, although I still think they are appropriate to use for offline businesses today.

But in the online world, much of the advertising allows for contacting the client one time, that’s it. Think PPC, or facebook ads, or paid traffic, etc. One time contact for each amount spent…

This means you have only one chance to recoup the money invested, and your earnings per click can be very low if you have not planned properly. The cost of the sale can be high.

They do help you build you a list, and they can build your brand, and they can make you money, so there is a place in the marketing world for such methods, no doubt…

 

Costs For Email Marketing

Now let’s look at the costs associated with email marketing…To understand this we have to understand the process…

Email Marketing Flow

Looking at the process of email marketing we can see then clearly the points at which there is a cost and specify the type of cost it might be as depicted in the 5 step process below:

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Step 1. WEBSITE VISITOR ===> sees something you are offering in exchange for contact information  ===>  this leads to…

Step 2. The VISITOR decides to join YOUR list as a subscriber ===> this leads to…

Step 3.  YOU then offering Subscriber information plus various promotions through a series of emails ===> this leads to…

Step 4. Subscriber reading your mails, reading and using your information, and when offered, buys your promotions ===>

and finally, this process leads to sales (again and again) and…

          Step 5.  SALES AND PROFITS…

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Costs You Will Incur

Other than the time you spend creating effective sets of emails and the autoresponder monthly cost (this cost can range from $0 to $15, $25 or higher as your list bets bigger and bigger) there is NO cost!

Does that sound like a cost effective way to market your products and services? I think so…

 

WHY Email Marketing Is Effective

Whether you knw this or not, email marketing is STILL the most effective way of marketing online! The three main reasons this has been the case for a number of years and remains the cae today are as follows:

(1) Pay acquisition cost once, have the contact and sales forever

Think about that for a minute…

Unlike a typical paid advertising campaign, whether an article, video sales letter, sales page, etc. with email marketing you have the opportunity to contact people over and over again.

You set up an effective lead magnet to attract them to sign up for your list (whatever that costs in time and material), then you can continue to contact them again and again…for almost NO COST.

Compare that to a PPC campaign done through Facebook. You may end up paying $.15 per click, but there are too many that come to your offer page, but leave and are gone forever.

For every 100 people you get to click on your advertisement, there are 3 that subscribe – this means that your three subscribers have cost you $5.00 each.

Not to mention you have lost the other 97 people that clicked on your offer but did not take action. You will not see them again, nor be able to contact them. They are gone.

This is not a very effective campaign compared to an email campaign, where you are building a relationship and sending offers again and again over time to people that know you! This is a targeted list and a lot more effective way to market over time.

(2) Email Marketing Can Be Applied To EVERY Niche

One thing that email marketing has over some other marketing methods is that it can be done within ANY niche. Sure, you can make money within most niches with other marketing techniques, but email marketing allows you to cross-promote relevant products to a niche as you have on-going communication with your subscribers.

If someone is interested in weight loss, they may be interested in a wide variety of items (cooking utensils, workout gear, etc). If someone is interested in a bird feeder, they are likely interested in bird feed, photography of birds, bird watching, etc. Having an email list gives you this opportunity.

Any industry, any niche…YOU can build a list within it!

(3) Email Marketing Should Be Automated

If you have a list of 3000 people, do you seriously think that you can write that many in a day? How about 3 times a week? How about a campaign series of 5 emails over a week period?

This is simply not possible nor effective. You need to automate. Period.

So you get a system in place that automates  first converting your visitors that are subscribing into leads, and through follow on emails that contain valuable information and some promotional offers, turns the leads into your customers, and this again and again over time!

Once you have an effective system that works well, and you know this because you have tested it, then it’s all about scaling up your email marketing campaigns. You continue to get more traffic, more leads, and more sales. If your email marketing system is converting on a small scale, it will convert on a large scale.

I will mention some tools to automate the whole process. Of course some attention will have to be there to make sure it remains working properly, but then all you have to do is essentially watch it perform for you.

It will make you money like a machine…

Basically you need to address the following 3 steps to develop a highly successful email marketing campaign:

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Step 1 – You must put together an irresistible initial offer

Step 2 – Once your visitors subscribe you must build the relationship through developing trust and confidence

Step 3 – Promote offers that your subscribers need and will value, and will act on generating you sales and profits

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To get the above steps completed effectively, you will need to understand how people work and how relationships in the email marketing setting work.

I will cover these points in detail plus more in the next section of this three part email marketing training.

PART TWO TRAINING – If you want to continue on to the next section, Part Two. you will find it here:

===> EMAIL MARKETING TRAINING PART TWO <===

 

PART THREE TRAINING – If you want to have a look ahead at Part Three, you will find it here:

===> EMAIL MARKETING TRAINING PART THREE <===

 

CONCLUSION

Time is money, as the picture above depicts, so I want to assure you that I will not waste your time nor your money. This training is absolutely free…It IS worth the time you will spend going through it…

There is a reason I titled this series as it is: What we are creating with our email marketing training is truly more than a simple quick gesture or attempt to get up and running.

If you are going to have an effective program this becomes Email Marketing, or “The Art of the Offer” which is a whole new and higher level than just throwing something together and sending it out to people.

There is some addiitional training that is available following this three part series, and if you are interested in that, at the end of part three I tell you more about it…

As we drill down further into how we develop the relationships with our subscribers in part two,  and then go into actual samples of emails that are effective and ineffective, how to write them effectively for your email marketing campaigns in part three, you will gain a complete up to date picture of email marketing and campaigns.

See you over at the next training segment!

 

FINAL POINT

As always I am interested in getting your feedback on this somewhat evergreen subject that some people pay far too little attention to. Your experiences and questions are welcomed too of course! Please add them below in the comment section!

Thanks!