10 Top Tips For Building Lists Through Email Marketing

Say the words "email marketing" and many people immediately think of spam, and as a result immediately dismiss it as a marketing option. This is where the skill of the affiliate marketer comes into play as it's your job to make your email campaigns an experience that your readers will find enjoyable - so much so that they will want to open and read them.

Sound far-fetched. Not at all. Here are some great ideas on how to make your emails campaigns a success.

Top Tip No.1
To make sure your emails are even expected in the first place, always seek permission from the receiver before sending them out. Remember to include a subscription button on your website, and encourage regular customers to have their friends sign up too - maybe even incentivise this. Give your readers an extra incentive to subscribe, by, for example, offering subscriber only deals.

What you don't want is to be accused of sending spam, so take precautions against this by including an email-list opt-in confirmation. What this essentially means is that a confirmation email must be clicked to fully register for your newsletter. This email should offer a simple link that your new subscriber can click on to verify their subscription. Your subscribers will appreciate this extra effort, and you'll also prove that your emails are not spammy!

There are several Wordpress plugins to automate this verification process - many of which are free.

Top Tip No.2
When emailing your subscribers, try to include promotional offers. For example, you could add a prominent 'call to action' button to your email that links to your offer products, that boldly states, "Get Now - Before It Goes!" onto the email. In addition, the end of this email could include a phrase that says, "Become a subscriber TODAY to get lower prices on our products." Note the addition of 'urgency' words like "Get It Now" and "Get It Today!". Words like this can often provide an urgency for the reader to take the required action.

Top Tip No.3
Try only to send a maximum of one email or e-shot a week. The likelihood is that your subscribers and customers receive masses of email every day. What we don't want is for them to skip your emails. So regulate them and certainly don't bombard them with emails - if you do, it will be perceived as spam!

Top Tip No.4
Pay attention to your audience and subscriber demographics. Understand what content and links interests a particular segment of your target audience, and then maybe follow up with a separate email to that subgroup. Targeting your communications in this way will reap rewards and your engagement levels will almost certainly increase.

Top Tip No.5
Another great advantage of targeted emails is that you are essentially sending your audience only emails that provide them with good and useful information. This, in turn, demonstrates to them that you realize and understand that their time is precious and that you only share information that you know your readers will want to receive - thus also building valuable trust with your audience. Remember, offer them value and something of relevance, like top tips or discounts.

Top Tip No.6
Don't be afraid to highlight the benefits of your product or service. Subscribers will always want to know what's in it for them, so don't be afraid to tell them - in the subject line, in your links, and in your content. Your emails a far more likely to be read by your audience if they can instantly see that what you have can be of benefit to them.

Top Tip No.7
If you have a common branding theme to your marketing, then repeat this consistently on your email layouts. Make sure that the color scheme is consistent and that your logo is prominent. Failing to follow a consistent theme will mean that your audience, readers and subscribers will get a confused set of communications and touch points that could make them wonder if they are from the same brand, thus having an impact on your conversions. So consistency is key!

Top Tip No.8
Make sure that the 'from' field of your e-mails shows the name or your organization or brand. Most people make a decision on whether or not to read an email simply by checking the 'from' field first. Many people are also wary of opening e-mails from unrecognizable sources, as it may be perceived that they contain viruses. So make sure this field is a name that is recognizable to them.

Top Tip No.9
Focus your emails on your audience, and not yourself. After all, it is your customers that make your campaign a success or a failure. Be a useful resource for them, and try to include their suggested ideas for features, updates or design elements. This can be collected through the use of online or email polls, website comments, etc. Getting your readers engaged in this way will help you build great and mutually beneficial relationships with your readers and will help you with your future communications to them.

Top Tip No.10

When all is said and done, people like interacting with people... not machines or robots! So make your email content reflect this. Be conversational and use your content to demonstrate to your readers that you are indeed a REAL person that genuinely wants to engage with the audience... and not just a robotic word generation machine that cares little or nothing about its readership.

Achieve this and your readers will love you for it. What's more, you'll gain their respect and trust - something that many marketing emails fail to do.

So there yo have it. 10 quick top tips for more effective email marketing. If you found this post useful, please LIKE it or add a comment below.

Sean