Getting Started
With Permission Based E-mail Marketing
By John Alexander
The thing to understand is
that every type of content you create can vary significantly
in way it is written. General Web page copy can vary
significantly from sales copy. Sales copy differs
significantly from working with press releases or news feeds.
In our live SEO Workshops, we go to great detail as a workshop
to teach each of these facets of writing to individual
students. We even offer options for how you can work with
content, even if you don't feel like you can write anything at
all.
But once again
copywriting for e-mail communications differs from everything
else.
About Permission Based E-mail
Marketing Vs. Bulk E-mail Marketing:
What is the difference between
permission Based e-mail marketing versus bulk e-mail
marketing?
Permission based is a way to build yourself a genuine list of
responsive readers the proper way and bulk e-mailing or
unsolicited e-mail is just Spam. Regardless of what type of
sales pitches you read trying to convince you that purchasing
ready made e-mail lists or so called safe e-mail addresses,
don't do it. Don't fall for it.
In theory, good e-mail
marketing is exactly as described by the term "permission
based." You are asking people for their permission to
communicate with them as your first essential step. The most
powerful use of permission based e-mail marketing is to build
your readership "based on a relationship." By
letting your e-mail speak in your voice and personality, it
helps people to get to know who you are.
What are the Benefits of
E-mail Marketing:
Permission based e-mail
marketing has a great number of benefits and you need to
consider these if you a have a business Web site. Remember
that the ultimate use of the Web is to build relationships
with your customers and stay connected with them. Don't put
off investigating this opportunity, because it greatly
increases your odds of doing repeat business as well as
several other things.
- What is your bounce rate?
When people land on your home page, you only have seconds
to take advantage of their presence. By offering the
opportunity to sign up to your news letter or e-mail
publication, it means you may have the opportunity to
bring them back over and over again.
- Create useful newsletter
publications that your readers will appreciate.
- Keep your audience up to
date on the important changes to your industry.
- Create a series of timed
auto-responses to deliver important information extremely
effectively.
- Offer readers a series of
tips or an advice column.
- Some services like Aweber
has the ability to allow you to automatically turn your
RSS feed into a blog newsletter that you can send to
readers daily, weekly, monthly or whenever.
- Analytics allow you to see
which of your communications are grabbing visitors'
attention?
What's the best time to send your email newsletter?
Will the short version of your next campaign drive more
sales than the long version?
Your ultimate goal is to build
a list of readers who appreciate the advice our counsel that
you have to offer.
General Tips Getting Started
With Permission Based E-mail:
- One of the first things to
do, is identify the purpose of your mailing. Will it be a
newsletter or a special report, or perhaps a series of
tips? Whatever your purpose is, it needs a defined purpose
so that you can build the element of familiarity with your
communication. Make sure it always comes out from the same
person with the same voice.
- Use a good sequential
auto responder like Aweber that has the ability to
deliver your message sequentially so that you can create a
nice series of communications to be released to each new
reader.
- When I say to practice
writing "for voice," I am using a term that
broadcasters use. In other words, write the way you talk
very naturally (rather traditional copywriting.) Your
e-mail communication needs to project your own natural
personality. Try and think of it as emphasis on
communicating "naturally." So many times when
people sit down to write something, they lose that ability
to communicate naturally. Probably because most of us were
brought up in school to worry more about subjects and
predicates and verbs and grammar, instead of how to write
for the purpose of communicating.
You can zoom up
on your readers with Aweber Mapping
Aweber
allows you to visually examine various subscriber lists by
geographic region and many other ways
- Learn to use your
unsubscribe rate as a barometer. People will always
unsubscribe just as new readers will be coming in at all
times. But if a specific mailing produces a huge
unsubscribe number, you may want to look at the message
and see if there was a reason for it. Were you being too
pushy with sales? Is there any way that particular
communication might be improved. Remember to try and stick
to the purpose you started with.
- Remember that some systems
allow for being able to mail to portions of your list.
There can be some advantages to e-mailing based on certain
criteria. For example there may be times you want to
e-mail just to your readers in a specific geographic
location. Maybe you want to extend a special offer just to
subscribers who have purchased from you previously. Or
perhaps you want to offer a special promotion to your long
term subscribers who have been reading your subscription
over a period of years.
- When you do see people
unsubscribe, it is not always a negative thing. If they
were not finding any value in your communications, it is
unlikely that they would be doing business with you. Let
them go and it's all good.
- Don't underestimate the
power of shorter broadcast messages. If you keep to your
original purpose then you won't see to many people
unsubscribe. Your readers will actually look forward to
your publications.
See the Next Article (Part 2)
for 8 more Tips on:
How
To Improve Your Permission Based E-mail Response Rates by at
least 100%
About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search
Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his
partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first
comprehensive online search engine marketing courses. John is author of an
e-book called Wordtracker
Magic and has
taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries world
wide. Would
you like a Free SEO Tip of the Day?
