Aug 30 2011
An Email Marketing ‘How-to’
Article by Clayton
Of all the ways to get website transfer and make money online, nothing tops email marketing. Of course, email marketing in itself means many things to many marketers. After all, it can take on quite a wide variety of formats.
Today I’ll cover the various forms of email marketing available to online businesses and reveal what works and what doesn’t. Here’s what we’ll chat about…
1. Unsolicited bulk email marketing 2. Opt-in email list leasing 3. Email newsletter classified and sponsorship advertising 4. Email newsletter solo mailings (text and html) 5. Email newsletter network advertising 6. Opt-in “series” email marketing
1. Unsolicited bulk email marketing
Let’s jump right into that perilous endeavor referred to as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). Most of you know my take on this. Sure, you can get some website transfer using bulk email. (Though a response rate close to the 10% rate some companies promise is not likely – .01% is more likely.) You can tackle the rigors of unsolicited bulk email marketing yourself (You’ll need lots of ISP connections because they’ll be canceled promptly!) or hire a company to do the dirty work for you.
But the fact is, since unsolicited bulk email angers a huge percentage of recipients, your risks can be rather high. Your domain will end up being blocked by many ISPs and you could even face some legal battles. In my humble opinion, unsolicited bulk email is not worth the distress. Read on and you’ll find that bulk email marketing isn’t really necessary either.
2. Opt-in email list leasing
A much “cleaner” version of bulk email marketing is “opt-in email list leasing”. There are plenty of companies on the web that will rent you email addresses that have opted in to hear commercial email. Really, in most suitcases they are not really renting the addresses; that is, you never see the addresses. Instead, they charge you a per email address fee for mailing your message to a list under their management. But does it work…?
As long the recipients are not being paid to read the messages and they are genuinely interested in the offers they signed up to hear, this strategy can be profitable. The problem is that in most suitcases you’ll pay from ten to twenty cents per address and mailing to a list large enough to get fantastic results can get quite expensive. But if your budget can handle it, you can generate some fantastic targeted transfer. I’ve tried a few list rentals myself, though not recently. The best was from the site fxstyle.net which has millions of addresses in a huge variety of categories under management.
3. Email newsletter classified and sponsorship advertising
Now let’s jump to a more reasonably priced email marketing solution… “email newsletter classified and sponsorship advertising”. In my opinion this one subdue gives the best bang for the buck, especially for small businesses with modest advertising budgets.
Some people reckon I recommend ezine advertising because I have an ezine and I’m trying to sell my own ad space. On the contrary, I’ve been trying NOT to sell my ad space for the last few years. That’s why my own rates are honestly high! I can run my own offers or affiliate offers and make much more than I can selling the ad space. Many additional ezine editors are finding the same thing. While this has resulted in rising ezine ad costs over the last few years, one fact remains… ezine advertising is subdue one of the most effective ways to get targeted transfer – cheap.
Ezine advertising works best when you locate ezines that your butt market really looks forward to reading. And that’s not hard to do… Just visit an ezine directory and search for ezines in your niche market. Subscribe to a bunch of free ezines and read them as they arrive. Look for larger circulation ezines that have a excellent following. If you like the content in any particular ezine, then hundreds or thousands of additional readers probably do too. Place a classified ad and if your site and offer are up to snuff, you’ll make a profit nearly every time. If you can swing a top sponsorship ad, that works about five times better than a fixed classified ad!
4. Email newsletter solo mailings (text and html)
An even better way to utilize email newsletters to drive transfer and sales is to buy “email newsletter solo mailings”. I’ve been able to locate both text and html solo mailing offers lately and some ezine publishers really under price these. (Especially compared to list leasing costs.) I’ve found html email to be especially effective, returning 4-5 times the cost of the ad in most suitcases. Once over again, the list must be tightly targeted to your niche audience for best results. Use the same directories above to locate ezines that reach your best prospects and you’ll undoubtedly find some that offer this type of advertising.
5. Email newsletter network advertising
The next email marketing strategy which I’ve been using quite a bit lately is “email newsletter network advertising”. In a nutshell, you pay email newsletter management sites to run top sponsorship ads across their network of newsletters. The transfer can be targeted to just about any niche and it’s quicker that finding each of the ezines yourself. Although this requires a larger initial investment than in succession ads in individual ezines, in the long run it is usually cheaper and it requires much less effort.
6. Opt-in “series” email marketing
Finally, I’d like to cover one last email marketing strategy which very few Internet businesses use, and use properly. It’s called “opt-in series email marketing”. This is a secret weapon many of the huge name marketers prefer not to talk about much. It works like this… You offer an attractive and irresistible freebie at your site, (in most suitcases this works best via a pop up or pop-under) and when your visitors claim their freebie, they are required to enter then name and email address. They then are subscribed to your series of personalized, scheduled email messages that you have pre-written. The best type of series is one that offers free valuable help and information about the subject they were looking for help on in the first place.
A well-written email series will form relationships with your best prospects, something that holds more value than most online businesses realize. The best part of this strategy is that once you do the setup work, all is absolutely automated and personalized. You may wish to check out the FXstyle software for excellent web based email list management software.
There are a number of sites that offer follow-up email auto-responder services. I use my Web Affair Wizard service for my own follow ups and it has worked wonders for my affair. When used properly, and with a bit of originality and flare, this email marketing strategy can be one of your top sales producers.
In closing… There you have it; six email marketing strategies and the results they yield. Of course here’s one more email marketing strategy I highly recommend, but I left it off today’s list. That strategy is “publishing your own email newsletter”.
If you are looking to get started straight away, check out our recommended email marketing solutions – FXstyle eMail Marketing. FXstyle as an innovative company provide all you need to start your email marketing battle promptly and easily.
About the Author
Clayton, is the international author and designer who effective in FXstyle. FXstyle eMail Marketing is a Creative Internet Marketing Company in commission as a rift of FXstyle Studio, Ltd. They take pride in staying at the leading edge of innovative marketing. They offers marketing solutions to provide you with unique, innovative and cost-effective ways to boost your customer base!
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