aWebBiz Internet Marketing Blog

While we would all like to think that building our list will go as smoothly as possible, it does not always happen that way. Sometimes things do go wrong, but you can minimize the problems as much as possible by being prepared.

Getting Spam Complaints Even Though You’re Not Spamming

One of the most frustrating things that marketers have to deal with is getting spam complaints. There are just some people out there that do not realize they will receive emails, even though they have signed up for an email list. This might sound facetious, but it’s very true. People might think that they are simply going to get the one special offer or freebie email and not continue to receive them. If they do receive additional emails and they are not sure why, they might hit the spam button. Some people also hit the spam button rather than hitting the delete button.

The best way to decrease the spam complaints you receive is to make sure people know what they are signing up for. Clearly outline that you will send messages regularly to help them. Making this clear may prevent some potential problems.

Also, make sure every email you send your list is in their best interest. If you keep sending them offers that are not in their best interest you will get spam complaints.

If you heed this advice and you still get a few spam complaints here and there, don’t worry. There will always be people who just do not understand. Your autoresponder provider will provide you with some guidelines to watch out for to make sure your spam complaints are not too high.

People Not Confirming Their Opt-In

Many autoresponder providers will recommend that you require a double opt-in procedure. That means that people not only have to sign up for your list in the first place, but they also have to click a link in their email that confirms they want to receive messages from you.

While this might seem like a hassle, it certainly does prevent complaints and other problems for you. On the other hand, sometimes these confirmation emails get lost in the shuffle or people do not understand what they are or what to do with them.

Make sure that people understand what they are supposed to do with the confirmation email by providing simple, clear instructions after they sign up. You may also wish to provide screenshots or video right after they sign up. This simple step can greatly increase your double opt-in subscribers.

Minimize The Number of People Who Unsubscribe

It’s hard not to take it personally when someone unsubscribes from your list. The fact is that there are many reasons this could happen. For one thing, some people are overwhelmed with the email they already receive. That means they might unsubscribe from your list just to cut down on the things that come into their inbox. Depending on how your list handles email address changes, you may also see unsubscribes whenever a person changes their email address. Some autoresponders require your readers to unsubscribe and sign up again if they need to update their contact info.

On the other hand, it might be something that you are doing wrong. One thing you might try is asking people what you could change in the future. This is certainly not a mandatory thing you must do, but some people will be more than happy to give you a reason.

Surveying your list and getting a feel for what your list members want is another way to cut down on unsubscribes. Knowing that you are providing quality content at all times is key. It’s also important to know the offers you send your list are targeted directly to them, and that they are enjoying the content that you provide.

Minimize E-mail Filter Problems

Dealing with email filters is a huge hassle if you are not prepared. Unfortunately, no matter how much someone wants to read your email, if their email automatically filters your messages out, you’re not going to be able to reach them!

The best way to avoid this problem is to make it very clear to your subscribers that they need to “white list” your email address. This will tell their email filter that messages from you are okay to receive. This is one of the things that you will want to include in the directions after people sign up. You may also want to include some instructions for the different platforms like Hotmail or Gmail accounts. AOL and Yahoo are known as being particularly picky.

Make Sure Your Messages Come Through Clearly

There are some people who have email accounts that cannot handle HTML. Still others do not wrap the text very well. You want to make sure you work with your autoresponder company’s tools to ensure that your emails are able to reach as many people as possible.

This often means including an HTML version and a text version of every email you send. You should also realize that some spam filters will give you spam marks against HTML. That is why some marketers stick with strictly text.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

Your ultimate goal is to help people, but you also want to increase your bottom line. Learning how to make money with your list is essential — it’s also important that you don’t make mistakes that could cut into your profits.

Promote Affiliate Products

One way to make money with your list is to promote affiliate products. The chances are good that no matter which niche you’re in, you can find relevant products that people will respond to. These might be information products, physical products, or even services. The important thing is that you check the product yourself for quality to make sure it’s something that you will feel good about putting your stamp of approval on.

Many list owners make the mistake of simply choosing offers based upon their commission without checking to make sure it’s something that their readers can actually use. By hand-selecting what you promote, you’ll gain the trust of your list members and they will be more likely to buy from you in the future.

In doubt? Don’t promote.

Promote Your Own Products

What many list owners end up doing is creating their own products (if they don’t have them already).

This gives you ultimate control over what you’re offering to your list, as you are the one who decides what goes into the product. This is amazing, because after a while you will have gotten a feel for what the members of your list really need. This allows you to zero in on their wishes and hand-deliver them a product you know they’ll be happy to pay for.

It can also be more beneficial to promote your own products, since you don’t have to split the commission as an affiliate. This can be more lucrative in the end. Having your own product can also brand you as an expert. As soon as people see your name on a book or other product, they know that you are a serious person in your field.

Presell The Product

No matter whether you’re promoting an affiliate product or you’re providing your own, you need to make sure you presell the product.

Preselling means to warm up your reader BEFORE he/she is sent to the sales page.

That means using good copywriting skills right within your e-mail that will show people that the product that you’re recommending is one that they actually need. Empathize with the reader, and show that this is a product that can do exactly what they need it to do.

That doesn’t mean you’re going to hype the product at all or lie. You can certainly make a lot of sales without making false claims about anything. It will be easier than you think to presell to your customers if you are promoting a product that you truly believe in.

Create Special Offers

Creating special incentives and offers can help you to make sales. Your list members will be thrilled to get discounts just by being a member of your list. This strategy also makes being a member of your list special and exclusive – something they can’t get from the competition.

Here are some ideas…

Negotiate a special discount with a product owner if you’re an affiliate. Ask the owner for a percentage off, a free trial, or even an added bonus – just for your readers.

Create and offer an added bonus yourself. Provide it only to those readers who buy a product through your affiliate link. For instance, an extra report, audio, or maybe even your notes that you took when YOU went through the same course.

Drop your price just for your list members on a product that you own.

Offer Resale Rights or PLR rights to your own product – only to your list.

Bundle up other people’s Resale Rights products into a package and offer it at a steal.

Offer personal coaching only to your list members.

No matter what you decide to do, keep in mind that you need to treat your list members like gold, which means giving them offers that nobody else has access to.

If you make these offers truly special, you’ll get customers for life!

Don’t Be Afraid To Change Out Products Over Time

It can be very tempting to just leave everything as it is after you’re done setting up different products to promote in your autoresponder series. The truth is that some offers may not convert as well as you thought they would. You need to check your stats and periodically clean things out. Test different offers to make sure the needs of your list members are being met — and that you’re earning as much money as possible.

That may mean trying different affiliate offers or taking note of your list member’s feedback and creating products based around that. Even though your autoresponder series can be “set and forget,” that’s not always the best case scenario.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.

Having a series of money-making autoresponder messages is a very important part of the process, obviously. If your autoresponder copy is dull and ineffective, it doesn’t matter how big your list is because you’re not going to make any sales. That’s why it’s very important that you understand how to write good copy before you get started.

After you sign up for your autoresponder account, you will want to load it with messages that will gain people’s trust and help you make sales.

Understand The Difference Between Follow-Up and Broadcast Messages

If you are completely new to list building, you may not know the difference between a follow-up message and a broadcast message.

Followup message:

Your follow-up messages are what the members of your list receive no matter when they sign up. These will usually be in a sequence that is delivered at a predetermined rate.

So, if Sally signs up on Tuesday she will receive follow-up message #1 on Tuesday. If Tom signs up on Friday, he will receive follow-up message #1 on Friday.

That means that your autoresponder sequences are your little relationship builders and salespeople 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Broadcast messages:

These types of messages are sent out to your entire list so that they receive them at the same time (also referred to as an “email blast”). This is a good option if you have something to share that is not a normal part of the sequence. It might be a special announcement or a time-sensitive or limited-time-offer special deal.

Use both types of messages in your business for best results.

Think About How Often You Should Send Messages

At first, you might be nervous about mailing to your list because you’re not sure how many messages you should send and how often. Unfortunately, there is not one correct answer to this question. The answer depends on your niche, the relationship you have with your members, and what kind of information you share.

If your messages offer a lot of value, people will probably want to receive them more often. If your list messages are more focused on making sales, people may expect them (and want them) less often.

Still, the balance is individual, so you should test what is best for you. A good autoresponder will show you the number of people who click on your message when you send it. If the number stays high with more frequent messages, your unsubscribe rate doesn’t increase, and sales tend to remain high, then your list may want to be contacted more frequently.

What some marketers suggest is having one autoresponder message scheduled per week, with perhaps a broadcast message in between if you need to have a special mailing. Yes, at times the messages might land on the same day to certain readers, but that’s no reason to avoid sending broadcast mailings to your followup message recipients.

Carefully Craft Your First Message

First impressions count. That’s why you need to carefully write your first autoresponder message. It is the first impression your list members will have of you. Even if they really liked what your website had to say, they will unsubscribe very quickly if they don’t think your list will offer them a lot of value.

Your first message should almost never contain a sales pitch. This is your chance to prove that they will want to remain on your list. You want to be warm, open, and friendly. You should also consider offering a special bonus or surprise for free. This will immediately help set a positive association with your messages. This can increase the open rates on your e-mails, put your relationship on the right path, and help you make more sales later on.

Decide When To Make Your First Sales Pitch

Some marketers are focused on making the sale right away. However, you may want to consider holding off until you are at least a few messages into email sequence.

Now, this rule doesn’t apply if people sign up to get a coupon or special product offer. Then they would expect that they are going to be sold to right away.

However if your list members signed up to get some valuable information, they may not take too kindly to getting pitched to right away. This is something you may want to test, but you need to think about the relationship first and the money later in most cases.

Split Test For The Perfect Balance

As your list grows, you will want to split test your messages. You might find that the way you set things up in the beginning was not the optimal way. We all want to improve our results and split testing makes that achievable. By tweaking a few things here and there you can increase your open rate and the desired responses your list makes.

If you have a good autoresponder company, the chances are good that they will provide you with the information and tools you need to split test. Companies like Aweber will automatically send half of your list one message and the other half a different message. They will then track the results so you can compare them and make changes.

Consider The 3-to-1 Formula

A popular formula that some of the top marketers use is sending 3 relationship building e-mails to every 1 sales e-mail. This is especially important in the beginning stages, and will set the tone for later e-mails.

What you might want to do is have the first e-mail be entirely focused on offering quality information and building a relationship, the second e-mail making a very soft pitch, the third e-mail selling a little harder, and finally the fourth e-mail blatantly promoting a product.

If it makes you feel more comfortable having a system to work with, then this is a sequence that you may wish to follow.

Study The Basics Of Copyrighting Before Getting Started

You may not think of yourself as a copywriter, but I recommend that you study the basics of copy to make the most of your list.

Elements such as the AIDA formula will certainly improve the responsiveness of
your list.

AIDA stands for:
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

This means capturing their attention, interest, desire, and finally having them perform the desired action.

No, I’m certainly not recommending that you hold off on starting a list or growing your list until you’re a highly skilled copywriter, but I do recommend that you continue to study copywriting to continually improve your results.

Focus On The Subject Line

While all elements of the e-mail are important, you will want to focus on the subject line.

If people don’t like what they see and are not enticed to click, they simply will not open your message. On the other hand, if your headline is attention-grabbing, they can’t help but click on your message to see it. Once they’ve opened your e-mail, it’s going to be that much easier to build your relationship and make sales.

Study Autoresponder E-mails That You’ve Responded To

As a marketer, the chances are good that you’re receiving emails from several other lists. Do you notice that you open some marketers e-mails more than others? You can learn a lot from this.

Save the e-mails that really grab your attention and make you respond, either by “labeling” them if you’re using Gmail.com or sorting those messages into a folder marked “Hot Copy”.

You can “swipe” certain copy ideas (not the subject lines themselves, but the ideas used) for use in your own e-mails to make them more attention-grabbing and response-inducing.

Consider The Length Of Your E-mails

There are some people who hate writing so much that their e-mails are only ever a paragraph or so long. There are others who are so prolific that their e-mails go on for pages. It’s probably best to find something in between.

If you are a writer who tends to go on and on, you have to remember that people are very busy. They often don’t have time to read long e-mails. On the other hand, you’re probably not providing much value or making enough of an effort if your emails are too short.

Find a happy medium, and your response rates will likely improve.

Do you want to improve your email marketing skills? If so then register for the free webinars below.

Free, Live Email Marketing Webinars ~ Become an Email Marketing Master

Recommendations:
aWeber Autoresponders - Quickly create and run your campaigns with powerful, easy-to-use email marketing tools.
Go Daddy – Where I purchase all my domain names.
Hostgator – Very reliable and low cost hosting service which I have been using for about ten years.