Email marketing is not a new concept in internet and network marketing. Yet it may be the trickiest part of the online list building process.
Most people know that it’s crucial to their business to maintain an email list.
It’s been repeated a million times (at last count) that “the money is in the List”. In other words, building an email list of leads and prospects, gives you a fairly permanent resource from which to mine for paying customers. That, ultimately, is the best way to actually make money online.
The problem is that so few people understand how to make their prospect list respond to their offers. In other words, the money is really not “in the list” as much as in your ability to convert prospects on your list, into buyers.
After all, a salesman can call on 100 accounts a day for a month. That’s a lot of people he’s been able to “pitch” with his greatest offers. But he doesn’t get commissions just because he visited thousands of prospects. He only earns commissions when he converts those leads into buyers. In other words, he needs to build a list of leads to follow up on, but unless he knows how to “close the deal”, it won’t result in any commissions.
The most important thing to do with the prospects on your email list, is to build a meaningful engagement with them.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of online marketers have no clue as to how to do this.
Most marketers simply pepper their client list with an endless stream of offers. Few people are excited to open emails just to see what the latest product offer is.
Other times, marketers are too shy about approaching their prospects, so they only email them once or twice a week (or even less). While your prospects don’t want an endless stream of sales promotions, they also don’t want to be virtually ignored and neglected. This makes them feel like they’re really not very important to you, and it certainly gives them little basis for becoming engaged in your business.
The best things you can do to build a relationship with your list are:
1. Email them “content” regarding your business or niche. Give them valuable tips, ideas, information and resources. 90% of your emails should be content-based. In this way, your prospects are encouraged to open your emails because they receive value from them. Moreover, the more value they receive from you in this way, the more they come to trust you, and the more they value their growing relationship with you.
2. Email to your list frequently. This means, at the very least, 3 to 5 times a week. But you should shoot for double that. When people get a steady dose of emails from you, especially ones that are content-based, they will look forward to receiving and reading them.
3. Seek conversions in 10% of your emails. One out of every ten emails should ask your readers to consider buying something. Now 10% is not a lot, so your prospects won’t feel like they’re just reading advertisements every time they read your email.
But don’t make the mistake that I see many of my clients make, by virtually NEVER asking their readers to buy something. All this does is to train your readers to expect only free content.
If you sincerely care about your readers, you should be offering them opportunities to buy things that will help them. If you don’t know what those things are, it is your business to dig around and find them.
List building is critical to internet marketers and network marketers.
But building a list of prospects will do you little good until you learn how to engage with them in a meaningful way that will entice them to trust you along with the products and services you offer them.
I’d love to hear of the successes (as well as challenges) you’ve had with your email marketing campaigns.