Getting Started in: Email Marketing

Introduction

E-mail marketing is hands down the most powerful and effective form of online marketing. Nothing comes close. Seriously. Even search marketing with all its hype and tried-and-proven success can’t even hold the candle to just how effective list marketing can be. It’s easy to see why, survey after survey, marketing firms keep putting e-mail marketing at or near the top of their advertising preferences. Here are the reasons why.

Through e-mail marketing, you can get in front of the eyeballs of your audience members anytime anywhere. That’s right. You can be at a beach in the Bahamas somewhere writing an e-mail update. Plug that in to your e-mail service provider and your audience, regardless of where they may be in the world and regardless of what they’re doing, are sure to get your e-mail. After all, most people check their e-mail inboxes. Isn’t that awesome?

This enables you to sell more products. Since you have a de facto relationship with people who voluntarily got on your mailing list, you are able to keep the conversation going. You don’t get just one bite at the apple in trying to get list members to buy. Every time you send an update, you get a chance to convert some of your audience members into buyers.

Through e-mail, you also get to keep in touch with the needs of your audience. It’s like you’re plugged in to what they need, what they’re looking for and the problems that they face. After all, that’s the reason why they joined your mailing list in the first place. They’re looking for solutions and answers that your list can provide.

This enables you to keep a steady flow of traffic to your blog or online store. Now, this traffic may not convert right there and then but the fact that it is constant enables you to get many bites at the apple. You don’t just get a one-shot chance at converting online traffic. That traffic can come back again and again with each and every update that you spend.

If you’ve heard great things about social media, you might want to think again. Social medial marketing faces many challenges because of the evolving algorithms of platforms like Facebook. As the years go by, Facebook is sending less and less organic traffic. Even if you have a big Facebook fan page with a gigantic following, you’d be lucky for your page posts to reach a tiny fraction of your following. It’s getting worse and worse with each passing year.

With e-mail marketing, you have a higher chance of reaching your complete mailing list instead of being at the mercy of these changing social media platform algorithms. It really all boils down to how well you write your headlines and how targeted your list recruitment is. If you did your homework and you played your cards right, you stand to reach a much larger percentage of your list audience. This is not the case with the typical Facebook fan page.

Finally, with your own e-mail list, you stay in control of your access to your audience. You can even download your list members’ e-mail addresses as you move from one e-mail service provider to the next. This list is your asset. It’s not going away anytime soon.

Given all these amazing reasons, it’s no wonder lots of old-school online marketers say The money is in the list.

But wait... If you have just jumped in with both feet into e-mail marketing, I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re probably going to fail. There, I said it. You can fail by:

  Putting up a list but it doesn’t attract many members.

  Attracting enough people to your list but most don’t open your e-mails.

  Building a huge list of people with many opening your e-mails - but most don’t buy anything.

The sad reality is that the vast majority of people who try their hand at e-mail marketing have very little to show for it. They spend money every single month on their e-mail service provider only to come up empty handed.

Failure in e-marketing comes in many different