Ready to start building your valuable email list? Before you start, remind yourself of these key important points and make sure that you’re on the right track.

Choose the Right Autoresponder to:

• Allow you to send bulk messages
• Let you handle new subscribers and people unsubscribing
• Create opt-in forms
• Handle list segmentation
• Check your data
• Run split tests
• Create Autoresponder Sequences

Build a Landing Page

This is a page dedicated to getting as many people to sign-up as possible. It includes:

• A headline and (optional) sub-headline
• A brief description of what is being offered.
• At least one supporting image or short video.
• (Optional) supporting proof elements such as testimonials, customer logos, or security badges.

You can also try using:

• A lightbox – A ‘Popover’ that will appear over your site.
• A widget – To place your opt-in form in the sidebar.
• Optimizely – A tool for running split tests to check whether small changes to your landing page will improve performance.

Think about the copy and how you are persuading your audience:

• Focus on the value proposition – what do they gain by signing up?
• Make it sound like a movement, and make people excited to be a part of your site.
• Remove the risk and doubt by emphasizing the ease of unsubscribing and promising to never sell their email address.

Other tips for getting more high-quality sign-ups:

• Add your opt-in page to your blog.
• Post regularly on relevant topics.
• Mention the mailing list within the text of your blogs.
• Ask people to sign up on social media and on YouTube.
• Ask people to forward your messages.
• Never buy emails.

Get into Their Email Box

• Avoid unwanted keywords that are associated with spam such as free, buy, sale, offer, etc.
• Ask to be whitelisted.
• Use a natural structure for your emails – write as though you were writing to a friend.
• Keep images to a minimum.
• Write emails consistently.

There are many more tips but if you follow all this advice, you are well on your way to a successful email marketing campaign.

The post Email Marketing Checklist appeared first on Second Self Virtual Assistance.

“A small list that wants exactly what you’re offering is better than a bigger list that isn’t committed.”

– Ramsay Leimenstoll

Creating a mailing list that is highly targeted and filled with engaged and interested readers takes a lot of time. Email marketing mistakes can bring your hard work to a halt. Some email marketing mistakes will destroy your chances of running any effective email marketing campaign.

Avoid These 4 Email Marketing Mistakes Like the Plague

Buying Email Lists
Buying lists is one of the 4 worst strategies when it comes to building a big mailing list. Buying leads is essentially buying ‘cold’ leads. They probably haven’t heard of your brand before and they never gave you permission to contact them. They will likely ignore your messages and may even report you as spam!

Offering Low-Quality Products
Selling or promoting a product you don’t 100% believe in will always come across in the way you present the message. People can tell whether you really believe in something or not. Providing only high-quality products and services will instill trust in your contacts. Satisfied contacts will continue to open your future emails.

Crickets
Another destructive behavior is to forget about your mailing list for an extended period of time. This might sound obvious, but it’s a mistake that a lot of people make. Forgetting to update your list allows your readers to become disinterested. They will forget who you are or why they followed you in the first place. When you send another new message, they’re not going to care!

Spamming
Spamming could mean sending too many messages or selling things that no one asked for. The key to good email marketing is to respect your audience. Take seriously the responsibility that comes with being able to access their inboxes. Always provide value and you’ll not only keep those hard-earned followers, but you’ll also continue to add to your list. For more information about spam laws, read the CAN-SPAM Act.

Avoid The 4 Email Marketing Mistakes Like the Plague!

You might also be interested in:

Email Marketing: 3 Ways to Avoid the Spam Filters

Email Marketing Checklist

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Email Marketing

Remember the old days when you’d put a list together, create and print a marketing piece, add postage and labels and wait? It was an exhausting process. It was also expensive.

That kind of marketing has its place. However, today’s email marketing is so much faster and cheaper. The trick is to know the email marketing do’s and don’ts.

Please Do

• Define the purpose of every campaign
• Determine the action you want the contact to take after clicking the link(s) in your email.
• Plan your marketing goals and strategies
• Design the components of your email (text, links, CTA’s, etc.) to make it easier for your contact to respond.
• Segment your lists by dividing your contacts into categories. This will drive more conversions and better relationships. The contact will feel that you know them and are providing information relative to their needs.

Please Don’t

• Don’t waste your hard-earned cash on buying email lists. You could run the risk of violating general data protection laws such as the CAN-SPAM Act. Those lists often have outdated information that can affect your deliverability rate. You could also be jeopardizing your reputation.
• Don’t send unbranded or custom email addresses. These are often caught by your Internet provider and will be sent directly to the SPAM file. Use email addresses that include a personal name instead of “info@” or “customerservices@”.

Use your email marketing efforts wisely. By putting these simple do’s and don’ts to work, you’ll find more success, develop better customer relationships, and prevent wasting your time.

Contact us to put our Email Marketing expertise to work for you!

The post Email Marketing: Easy Do’s and Don’ts appeared first on Second Self Virtual Assistance.

We’ve all heard it…“The money is in the list“.

Why is this true? People buy based on trust. It’s an essential part of any transaction. One of the best ways to earn trust is through email.

When people sign up to your mailing list, they trust you enough to hear what you have to offer. They may not contact you right away but at least they have some degree of faith in what you have to say.

Sending your contacts regular updates helps them feel more confident in you. They see that you know what you’re talking about. This level of credibility increases as they keep getting your emails.

Like…Know…Trust – Only Then is Conversion Possible

• LIKE…People need to like you enough to keep listening to you.
• KNOW…People must feel that you know the solution to their problems.
• TRUST…People need to think that you know enough about them and their problems that they can trust your recommendations.

One of the great things about email marketing is that you work with people regardless of their timeline. Some people need to receive one email and they are convinced. Other people take a lot more time. They may not quite be at the point of needing your services. When they’re ready, though, they’ll know who to call.

Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing takes a consistent connection. That’s where email automation comes in. Set up your system to send out pre-scheduled emails. Schedule them weekly, monthly or on a special time schedule. Once you’ve done this, a lot of the future work is done automatically.

Email marketing is a process. Build a profitable list, create consistent emails that keep your contacts informed and interested. Help them learn that you are the right person to contact when they’re ready for your services.

The post Email Marketing: A Path to Successful Sales appeared first on Second Self Virtual Assistance.

Are You Chasing Away the Contacts on Your Email List?

Even the best-intentioned email marketing plan can go awry.  It’s important to know what will and won’t work. Otherwise, all your efforts will be in vain.

Know When to Send – Releasing emails only when you have something to sell is a real turn-off to your contacts.  It’s like opening your front door to a vacuum cleaner salesman. You may or may not need a new vacuum cleaner but you know he’s just there to sell you something.

It’s a lot like that with email marketing. By constantly sending emails with the sole purpose of selling something, you run a great risk of having your contact hit the delete button.  Like the vacuum cleaner salesman, you’d be better off to build up to the sale. Send useful information; a newsletter, a holiday card, tips and tricks, etc.  This helps you build credibility and trust. Your contacts will be far more likely to pay attention when the sales pitch is given.

Headlines – No doubt you’ve heard that your headlines need to be attention-grabbing.  A boring headline would say something like, “Open this Email Before It’s Too Late!”  There’s no incentive to open your email.

Standing in a grocery store line provides endless entertainment. There are usually “rag” magazines with headlines like, “Man-Eating Monster from Mars Gives Birth to 3-Headed Baby”.  This headline might be fun to read but a clever headline like this does nothing to entice your target contacts to open your email.

It is never appropriate to use profanity. It’s extremely unprofessional and gives your contacts a bad impression.

When creating your headline, avoid words like “Urgent!” or “Expiring Soon” unless your offer actually has an expiration date. People who see these words on several emails will get wise quickly.  They’ll see it as a tired ploy and stop opening your emails altogether.

Does Controversy Work? The short answer is, “yes and no”.  Your demographic helps you know what type of controversies will work for them.  If you’re working with seniors, for instance, they’re probably not as interested in the same things as millennials would be.  For instance, “large home vs. smaller home” or “close to town vs. rural living”

The point is to step back and think of topics that will help your demographic. And, in all circumstances, it’s best to avoid hot-button issues.

Take these three tips and use them to create your email marketing plan. Think of ways to connect with them individually as well as in a group of other contacts.  Let them know that it’s not all about the sale.

Other important email marketing posts:

• Email Marketing Success: The Single Most Important Question to Ask
• Are Your Emails Making it Past the Spam Filters?
• How to Plan Your Next Email Marketing Campaign

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