The “Email Marketing” Connection

Again, the money is in the list!

Once you start building a loyal list of prospects and customers, you can send emails to them from time to time and start building a relationship.

Email Marketing has been a while for a long time and is not expected to go away anytime+ soon.

Most local businesses are familiar email marketing, but have not considered using this method within their own businesses.  This is a mistake because email marketing will dramatically reduce your marketing costs while bringing you more business at the same time.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing tools that a business can use to connect with local customers and prospects.

By using an email Autoresponder system, you can stay in front of existing customers and prospects on complete auto-pilot.

This will create a constant stream of new customers as well as repeat customers. 

Benefits of Email Marketing

Email Marketing allows you to easily build trust, credibility and relationships with your prospects and customers. You can:

• Increases sales and profits
• Costs less than most other advertising methods
• Converts more prospects and website visitors into customers
• Completely hand-off and automated
• Easily deliver important messages to your prospects and customers
• Easily track results
• SPAM Compliant

     
Every business wants to connect with local consumers without spending a ton of money in advertising. Email Marketing will allow you to do just that.

With an email marketing campaign, you can truly stay connected with potential buyers 24/7.

Preparing for Your Email Marketing Campaign

To start building your Email Marketing campaign, you will need an autoresponder system.

This system will deliver your messages and allow you to manage and track your campaigns.

You will also want to make sure that every page on your website has an email opt-in form installed.

Opt-in forms are created within your autoresponder system and an HTML code is provided, which should be installed on your website.

In exchange for their email addresses, offer your visitors something of value. So start thinking about what you will offer.  This could be a free information report related to your industry, a coupon, a discount, or whatever you see fit.

If your customers come into your business, you should also capture their email addresses there. Again, offer them something nice in exchange for their email addresses.

Let’s look at all of this a little bit closer...

Choosing and Setting Up Your Email Autoresponder System

In order to run an email marketing campaign, you will need an Autoresponder system, which is a web-based email marketing software that will deliver your email messages to your list.

Autoresponder systems are affordable and make the emailing process truly “hand-off” once you set everything up.

1.   Choose an Autoresponder service company to use. These companies charge you a small monthly fee to hold your list of email addresses and messages.

Some of the most popular are Get Response and Aweber.com. 
 
2.   Add contacts to your Autoresponder system. This can be done manually. However, if you have an opt-in form on your website, they will be automatically added.

3.   Create some starter email messages and add them into your Autoresponder system so you can start following-up with your list.  Continue to send them messages that contain valuable information.  Never let your list run cold!

4.   Generate an opt-in form to place on your website. Once your Autoresponder is setup, you will have the ability to generate an opt-in form to place on your website.

An opt-n form is a simple HTML code that is generated by your Autoresponder. When setting up your code, you will determine what information you want to capture.

Obviously, you will need their email address, but you can also ask for additional information such as their name, address, phone number, etc. However, the less you ask for, the more subscribers you will get.

Capturing Email Addresses on Your Website

It has been proven that giving away a free gift in exchange for email addresses works better than any other method.

Visitors are more apt to give you their email address if they get something in return. However, whatever you decide to give them must be valuable and something they would benefit from. Make sure it’s enticing enough to make them leave their email address to get it.

As mentioned earlier, your Autoresponder opt-in box on your site will be responsible for collecting email addresses, but you must have a way to entice your visitors.  

You can offer things such as:

Discounts and Coupons: Most businesses sell products and services that benefit from the use of coupons. Everyone wants to save money these days so offering a discount or coupon could prove to be very powerful for building a list.  

Free Ebooks/Reports:  A lot of people are online searching for solutions to a problem or need that they have. Free reports are the perfect way to give them the information that will solve their problem or fulfill their need.  

Free Video Guides: Video is quickly becoming one of the most powerful marketing methods online today. Many people would rather watch a video than read an e-book, so you should definitely cater to this market.


Free “How-To” Tutorials: Tutorials are an excellent way to build an email list. This is because a tutorial provides a LOT of value to subscribers who are looking for a solution to a problem.  

Emailing Your List

Once you start building your list, it’s time to connect, educate and “soft-sell” to them by providing them with valuable information...

This could be things such as newsletters on topics of interest, “how-to” tutorials, etc.

Coupons and promotions should be worked in - do not bombard your list with hard-selling methods. It is not effective.

The most important aspect of email marketing is “relationship-building.”

Use email to get familiar with your list and to allow them to get to know you.

People buy from those they know, like, and trust - this is a known fact. So establishing a relationship is one of the most profitable things you can do to get a strong connection with local consumers.

Whatever you do, just be sure to provide your list with valuable information and don’t bombard them with promotional offers.

Also be somewhat conservative about how often you send emails - there is a such thing as “too many emails” when it comes to email marketing.

Don’t hit your subscribers with constant emails because this will reduce the perceived value of being a part of your list. Once the value is gone, people will quickly opt-out.

Instead, only send out emails periodically and this could vary depending on the nature of your business.

However, in most cases, just sending one email per week – or even two emails per month is more than enough to build a strong connection with your list.

If you would like professional help implementing any of the methods you read about in this report, please contact me.

David Simon