Day 23 – Email Marketing
Most first time visitors to your website will not be ready to make a decision as to whether your Home Business is the one for them. Because before they decide to do that, there is one essential ingredient; trust. Trust is something that has to be earned over time, and no amount of fancy copy on your webpage will be able to build that solid foundation of trust.
This is where your email campaigns come in. Email is probably one of the most under rated forms of marketing in this industry, but it is also one of the most effectives. Yet so few people get this right. Time and time again you see Home Business Owners using emails that have been pre-written by the companies these people represent. And you can tell.
If you want to establish trust, your emails must offer value, and must be written as if from a friend (so this rules out trying to write in the formal manner so often used in corporate world).
Relationship marketing is what this is all about.
Faced with the choice of joining you, or joining a top earner in the industry who is making over $100,000 a month, most people will actually partner with who they get along with the most (of course there are some people who will shop around for mentors).
It’s important to recognize the frame of mind that your audience is in before writing a single word. To sell our business opportunity, we must first create rapport, and one way that we do this is by mirroring the other person, or acting like them. People are most likely to bond with those they perceive to be like them.
An effective way of doing this is to use a similar language to your audience, with the effect being that they feel like they know, like and trust you, even if they can’t identify why.
When it comes to email, people are used to a up-close-and-personal style of language, that is to the point. We tend to communicate in little snippets of information, which comes from using Instant Messaging, text messaging, and lots of emails.
Never begin your emails with formal corporatespeak: “We at Home Business Builders are the leading Home Business movement in Australia, and offer the most comprehensive support in the industry.” This kind of language only ends up keeping your audience at arms length. Plus it’s boring, which is something that no marketer ever wants to be.
Write your emails as if you were writing them to just one person; even if they are being broadcast to 50 people at once. Be personal.
How To Avoid Spam Blockers
Most email providers have spam filters in place, to keep their users happy. The problem is, sometimes these spam filters can become over sensitive, and even a few innocent words used in the wrong place can send your well intentioned email straight into the recipients spam box, never to be seen. Here’s a list of words you’ll want to avoid;
Amazing
Amazing stuff
Buy now
Cash bonus
Compare rates
Congratulations
Dear friend
Free
Free money
Free investment
Free leads
Great offer
Guarantee
Investment
Money
Multilevel marketing
New
No initial investment
Opportunity
Order now
Powerful
Profit
Promise you …
Sale
Search engine listings
Serious cash
Special promotion
Winner
…. I’m sure you get the point. Basically, any words that make you sound like you have something to sell can potentially cost you.
One way to potentially get around these spam filters is by inserting special symbols or characters into the words …eg. “fr*ee.” But you don’t want to do this too often, since it will diminish their readability.
If you’ve got an email you’d like to send out, and want to test whether it’s considered as spam, then you can run it through Lyris’s ContentChecker before sending it out. It’s a free service that uses SpamAssassin’s rules to rate your email. Just go to http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker.
How to Write Effective Emails
1.) Create a Compelling Subject Line
The subject line must be irresistible; it must beg to be opened. Most people can receive up to 50 or more emails a day… and many of these will go unopened, especially when the subject lines are boring.
You never want your subject line to look like an advertisement…that’s like asking your readers to watch a commercial. Instead, focus on offering value. The top earners in this industry all know this. If you look at guys like Brian Fanale of Carbon Copy Pro, or Jonathon Budd and Mike Dillard, most of the emails they send out try to teach you something. They aim to educate you in what’s required to do well in this business. By doing this, you establish yourself as an expert in the industry, and as someone who adds value.
Each of us is bombarded with over 3,500 commercial messages a day, from TV, radio, and especially online. So the last thing you want to do is to appear to be just another ad.
The first thing people will do when they open their email inbox is scan the subject lines. Some people will look in the ‘from’ column to read who’s sending the email, but most will go straight to the subject line. Ask yourself this; which of the following subject emails would you be most likely to read first?
Most will go for the last… because it’s personal, and speaks directly to the reader. It arouses curiosity, and the reader is compelled to ask the question “why are you worried?” To find out, they must open your email.
Here’s a few more examples of good subject lines;
Never use trickery or misleading subject lines to get people to open your emails. If you use the subject line, “Here’s 10 Fr.ee tips for doing well in a Home Business …” and your email contains only 5, then chances are you’ll perceived as someone who is untrustworthy and unreliable, which will ensure that your future emails will not be opened. And once you lost that trust, very few people will want to invest in a home business from you. Remember, people buy from people they like, know and trust.
Try to avoid the following words in your subject lines;
Words like these reek of advertising or commerce, when your goal is to appear friendly and personal.
2.) The First Sentence
Your opening line should identify who you are and establish rapport. Just a couple of ice- breaking sentences should be sufficient. Eg. “I just got back from a trip to Sydney for that Synergy conference I’ve telling you about. It was really useful…. learnt a lot of new marketing techniques that I hadn’t even thought of.”
You should always be trying to create a bond, and if you do it right your propects are likely to think or say “I feel like I know you,” even if you’ve never met in person. Most of the marketing you do will be to people who aren’t in your local area, so it’s important that you can create a relationship with emails and on the phone.
3.) Stay on Point
Remember, your readers are busy, so don’t waffle on too much. Brevity and clarity get high marks. Use a journalists’ device know as the inverted pyramid. The wide base at the top represents the most significant, newsworthy information, and the narrow tip at the bottom the least important information. so using this method, put your most important information at the top, on that first screen shot that people see when they open your email, and the least important details at the bottom.
4.) Just One Message
Stick to a single message for each email, so that you can lead your reader down an intended path. Internet users have notoriously short attention spans. When looking at their screens, most people will scan, not read. So if you have 4 or 5 different messages in the one email, your readers will scan to the one that they are most interested in, read it without their full attention, and are not likely to go down the intended path you have for them (such as clicking the link in your email to go and read your latest blog post or article etc.)
5.) Provide Value
Give your readers something of value for their undivided attention. This will also help to ensure that they regard your emails as worth reading for in the future. On a personal note, I currently receive perhaps 40 or 50 emails a day that I won’t even open. And the main reason is that in the past, the emails I’ve received from these people/ companies have been purely about self promotion- they don’t offer me anything of value.
A key question your prospects will be asking is “What’s in it for me?” If you don’t have an answer to this, then you need to find one.
6.) The Benefit
Don’t just tell your reader about what your offer/ information is. You have to tell them how it will benefit them. Simple state your offer, and follow up with “…so that you can [fill in the blank].” For example, if you are telling your prospect about how most of us in Home Business Builders use email autoresponders, you can explain their benefit with;
“….so that we don’t have to spend all of our time writing out emails to everyone whoe requests more information from us. This way, you can put that part of your business on autopilot and focus more on the money making activities”
7. A Call to Action
You have to ask your Potential Business Partners to take action. Most people will not take that first step on their own, and this applies not just to email marketing, but to getting people to enroll and purchase Discovery as well. One of the biggest mistakes I made in the first few months of my business was that I was too afraid to ask people to take the next step. I thought I might offend them or they might perceive me as being pushy. But at the same time, I wasn’t getting results. I realized that at some point, I’d have to be the one to suggest that they take the next step, and once I did that things started to go well.
With your emails, the call to action might be asking people to click, enroll, etc., but whatever it is you must make sure you tell them what you want them to do next.
Much of todays lesson I learnt from a book called “Web Copy That Sells,” by Maria Veloso. I highly recommend you get it, it’s one of the best investments I’ve made in my own Home Business.