You are probably familiar with email marketing on the consumer side of things. Chances are, you’ve signed up for a various email lists. Whether it’s a retail store in your local neighborhood, or an online business, if you get emails from a business, you’re on their list.
Let’s talk about it from the other side – as in, the business side of things!
There’s an old saying that “the money is in the list,” and that is true!
Email Marketing can be your number one marketing tool. It is one of the foundations of online marketing, and it’s rooted in direct marketing.
This is when businesses would send out fliers postcards catalogs and other mail, directly to their customers.
Some businesses still do this, but it’s more common to send emails now.
Email Marketing is very cost-effective, and it’s easy to do! Plus, Email Marketing helps you build a relationship with your customers and potential customers, and it can also help you create passive income.
Sometimes, all you need to do is just remind people that you exist!
It sounds silly, but sometimes, all you need to do to start generating some sales is sending an email and saying “Hey – I’m here and I have these products and services!”
What you need to get started.
You will need to use an email service, such as Aweber SendInBlue or MailChimp. It will be impossible to try and handle your email marketing in your personal email account.
You have an add people to your mailing list, and once you start getting a lot of people signing up for your list, it will be impossible to manually keep up with that.
Plus, you have to include a link at the bottom so that people can unsubscribe, if they choose to.
If you tried to keep up with adding and removing people all by yourself, you’d end up spending all day on that, and never getting to any other task within your business.
This is why you simply need to use an email service.
Now, before we go further, I want to give you a quick “heads up” …
Every so often, you will hear someone claim that “Email Marketing is dead.”
That is not true!
People are still checking their email on a regular basis, and I don’t think they’ll stop doing that anytime soon.
In many cases, the people who claim Email Marketing is dead are the same people who are relying on social media for their marketing. The problem with that, is the fact that you do not own the social media sites.
You should NOT rely on Social Media Marketing.
Here is why that’s a bad idea:
If these sites shut down, or make changes (and Facebook makes a lot of changes!) your marketing will be affected big time!
Plus, with social media, there is no guarantee that your followers will see your posts. Let’s take Twitter, for example. Your followers are in different time zones, and it’s hard to say how many of your followers will be online at any given time.
If you are in the Eastern time zone, the people in the Pacific time zone are three hours behind you. If you are posting at 9am, it is only 6am there. They are probably not looking at Twitter at that time. They may be in bed, in the shower, or getting kids ready for school.
On the other hand, if you are in the Pacific time zone, and you are posting at 9pm, it’s already midnight in Eastern time, and many of the Eastern time people are in bed.
Things are much different with Email Marketing. If someone isn’t checking their email the moment you send the message, it will be there waiting for them, when they do check their email messages!
When it comes to Email Marketing, there are different types of email messages that you can send to your newsletter list.
Chances are, you will be sending a mix of these messages.
First of all, there are Autoresonder Messages, which are also known as “Evergreen Messages.”
With this type of message, you can load your messages up into Aweber SendInBlue or MailChimp (or whichever email service you are using), and they will automatically go out to your subscribers, in the order you have set up.
For example, if Sarah signs up for your list on January 1, she will get the first message. If Sally signs up for your list on March 1, she will get the first message. Meanwhile, Sarah could be on message #8 at that point.
Once you do the initial work of setting up the messages, your email service will do the works for you. This really frees up your time, and can help you create passive income.
You can insert links for your products or services, as well as affiliate links for things you are promoting The autoresponder series will continually be going out to your new subscribers, so you will be continually marketing your products or services, and any affiliate links.
Next, there are Broadcast Messages. You can write them and send them to your entire list on the same day. You can also write them today and plan to send them out, to your entire list, on a day in the future.
This is great for when you are launching a product, or you are an affiliate for someone else’s product launch, and you want to let your entire list know about it, as well as schedule some reminders.
It’s totally normal to be confused on how often you should email your list.
And, if you took the time to ask a bunch of people what they thought, you’d more than likely get a bunch of different answers.
Which will leave you even more confused!
First of all, you should send more emails than you think.
Some people only want to send one email a month. That’s a big mistake. Your readers may forget about you. You want to stay current in their minds (and inboxes).
Even more important, is to be consistent. If you send an email out today, and then send another one in two weeks, and then wait 3 months to send another email, you’re confusing your readers.
Being consistent with your emails will let them know when to look for a new email, and it will also help them see you as a dependable person they can trust!
Sometimes, a person just needs to be reminded that your business exists, and that you have something to offer. You’ll be surprised at how many more sales you will receive when you become consistent about sending your emails!