A Newsletter Marketing Primer

Category Email Marketing, General | 14 comments »

Newsletter marketing can be one of the best ways to sell a product or market your company. It can be difficult to start and maintain, but the benefits of a good subscriber list can be a great gain.

So why are newsletters great? Simple. Instead of soliciting random consumers, you’re reaching out and talking to those already interested in your product (they signed up after all). Not only that, but instead of forcing them to come to you, you’re able to go to them.

Building the List

The hardest part of creating a profitable newsletter is building the initial following. There are a few strategies that can be mixed and matched, and I’ll go over a few here.

The first is to simply drive traffic to a landing page. List the value someone would gain from your newsletter and offer them a form to sign up from. This is the simplest of methods, and is a great starting point.

You can take the above method one step further and offer a gift to the potential subcribers. The gift could be anything from a free listing on your site or a free ebook to download. This strategy may increase the number of subscribers you have but may also drop your open-rate for emails, as people were never really interested in your emails and just wanted the free ebook or listing.

A third strategy, one that takes more effort, requires making friends with other list owners. You can ask them to send out an email inviting them to sign up for your newsletter, as you do the same for them. You can also add onto this by linking to their newsletter landing page on your thank you page. This technique works well because the people already subscribed to one newsletter are more likely to sign up for another.

Newsletter Profit

By the time you begin really building your list, you should already have some good content. An autoresponder is a great way for sending pre-created chains of emails, or you can use a broadcast system to send one email at a time to the entire list.

Generally the rule of thumb to use when pushing affiliate products on a newsletter is to not suggest a product before your 7th email. You need the initial 6 emails to build trust with your subscribers.

If you’re trying to push your own product, the emails can be slightly different. The first email should remind consumers to check out your product. The second could try to sell your product again, reminding consumers how useful it is. Finally, the third email should try to sell it at a discount. You’re better off making a sale at discount, than no sale at all. At this point, if the consumers hasn’t bought your product they most likely won’t. Instead, you can now start recommending related products to these subscribers via an affiliate link.

Another method to make money from your newsletter is to simply sell advertising space in each email. This works well because its a generally consistent email and you don’t have to worry about how many people clicked through to the product and converted. Sell the advertising like you would any other ad on your blog or website.

Hopefully, you got a basic understanding of how to create a newsletter and how it can help sell affiliate products or your own. Subscriber lists are a great way to keep in touch with your consumers, so never let the conversation die. Try to send out a relevant and valuable email at least once a month, reminding your consumers the value of your emails.

Do you have any good experience with email marketing? How does it relate to social media marketing? Have an advanced tip you’d like to share? Let us know, and leave a comment!

Popularity: 44% [?]

GUARANTEES that knock customers off the fence

Category Advertising, Copywriting, Email Marketing | 2 comments »

Put yourself in your client’s shoes. No, strike that.

Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes (a prospect being someone you’ve never marketed, sold to or married before).

She doesn’t know you; she doesn’t trust you, and she couldn’t care less if you drop dead tomorrow.

But, through deft marketing-you’ve captured her attention! Her eyeballs are yours!

And she believes, as she scans your sales copy, that you just might be selling something she wants. No, strike that.

She immediately realizes (via a great headline and lead) that you’re selling exactly what she wants-or something she thinks she wants (same difference).

Let’s say, it’s a book, a cream, a doctor, or a pill that’ll help her lose weight.

Now if you’ve ever tried to sell weight loss products you know how sisyphusian a task that can be. Weight loss products are a wasteland of failed talismans, potions and quackery (despite “A”-quality copy, offers and celebrity endorsements).

Why? Because…

There’s only one way to really lose weight-and keep it off

And if you think it’s through exercise or diet, or both-you’re half right.

The only way to lose the blubber is through the 3-D’s, otherwise known as determination, dedication and downright doggedness-anything else is just low-fat salad dressing.

But, I digress.

So your prospect, let’s call her Julie is hesitant to order your product because… well, there could be lots of reasons. For example:

• You didn’t provide compelling proof or credibility to back up your claims
• Your sales copy loses steam in the middle and runs off on different tangents
• You didn’t mine and exhaust the list of deep-down benefits your product provides, or you didn’t fully dimensionalize them
• Your sales copy, from beginning to end, doesn’t lead Julie inescapably to the “Order Now” button
• Your website/brochure/sales letter looks like it was created by a designer who wants to be and artist and win awards-not make sales
• You have no testimonials or endorsements
• You don’t clearly and unequivocally ask for the order, nor do you mention the terrible consequences of not ordering
• There’s not enough personalization and “you speak” in your copy (when Julie reads your ad/sales letter she has to feel as if you’re talking to her, not a faceless, festering blob of cellulite)

There’s more of course; the list goes on and on….

But let’s say you’ve provided all of the above, and more. Yet, Julie still won’t show you the money-even though you’ve absolutely persuaded her that your blubber pulverizer works.

Why might she still be hesitant?

Well, she’s fallen for other blubber blasters before, too many in fact-and still can’t zip up her pants.

And in these scary economic times-she can’t risk of losing more money on more blubbery promises-regardless of how much her hips, thighs and seat swell.

Allay her fears-remove all the risk

Offer Julie, what I call, a “gifted guarantee”.

I know, very few of us value or trust guarantees anymore-they’ve lost their marketing effectiveness (due primarily to thoughtless copy-cat construction).

Like so many newspaper ads, they’re a blur of meaningless, unconvincing verbiage.

Others are way over the top…

“Lose 50 pounds in one week! Erase all stretch marks in 3 days! And have the movie studios calling you by tomorrow night-or your money back!”

Such a guarantee is patently stupid-and would convince only the equally stupid.

And yet, even though Julie doesn’t believe or trust your guarantees-she still wants you to offer her one.

A guarantee is like a presidential election promise. Everyone wants to hear and applaud how Obama and McCain are going to lower taxes, grow the economy and keep America strong domestically and globally.

Yet, everyone knows, whoever becomes our next president, it’ll be business as usual on Pennsylvania Avenue come January-and nothing will change.

So, even though Julie is distrustful, cynical and maybe even scared-she still wants to believe you can help her.

She wants you to tell her everything will be all right and she won’t be taken to the cleaners, again (and have the waist on her skirts and pants taken out).

So how do you craft a guarantee that combines the eloquence and hope of Obama with the honest and straight-shooting no-nonsense approach of McCain?

How indeed do you overcome that last hurdle between you and Julie’s money?

Crafting an unusually effective and convincing guarantee

The fist thing you want to avoid is to make your guarantee read like everybody else’s.

If your guarantee sounds obligatory, perfunctory and commonplace, e.g. “Your money back if not 100% satisfied”, not only will Julie’s jaded eyes ignore or miss it-she’ll completely discount it. That is to say, she’ll not be in the least bit persuaded by it.

So rather than write a guarantee that reads like a limp handshake-power it up. Explain it, and sell it!

Explain why you’re offering it, why it’s worth more than the paper it’s written on-and why there’s no reason to doubt it.

Your guarantee is part of your offer-make it attractive and absolutely believable. Make it part of the running text and a few paragraphs long.

But remember, if it sounds too good to be true-you’ll lose the sale.

And by all means–be imaginative. If your guarantee is distinctive enough-it might even become your USP (unique selling proposition).

Domino’s Pizza…

…Built an empire base on their guarantee: Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free.

Do the same thing with your guarantee! Think outside the pizza box. But never make a promise you can’t keep.

Instead of offering a typical and boring 30-day guarantee-make it a 6-month or 1-year guarantee.

Tests actually prove the longer the guarantee the less the returns.

Why? Because when Julie realizes she’s got only 30-days to ask for her money back-she’ll remember that, you can bet on it.

But, tell her she’s got a year-she’ll fuhgedaboutit!

And while you’re at it, if you’ve got a truly killer cannot-fail product-why not offer a double-your-money back guarantee!

Sure, you’ll attract a number of low-life’s trying to score some “free usage”-but they’ll be nothing compared to the increased traffic and orders you’ll receive when your offer/guarantee goes viral.

And whatever you do, at the very least-make your guarantee bigger, better and bolder than your competition’s…

And then… lo and behold… guaranteed success!

–Barry

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