Internet marketing is in many respects a numbers game. Most people who visit your website (or the website of an affiliate product that you are promoting) won’t buy. In fact it is common to say that 99% of people won’t buy on their first visit. So it pays to develop a method to stay in contact with people who might be interested in a product so that you can give them multiple opportunities to browse your website and consider your offer. Many people will take between 7-12 visits to a website to make a purchase. That’s why in internet marketing your primary business asset is your list.
Email marketing is a direct response business. It is different to many forms of marketing and advertising that merely promote a brand or a product without giving a viewer an opportunity to purchase directly. Email marketing is therefore a very powerful form of internet marketing and marketing in general as sales can be generated instantly and success measured very quickly.
Email marketing is also a very inexpensive form of direct marketing as the cost of sending an email is virtually non-existent (particularly when compared with direct marketing postage costs in the offline world). It also allows a user to market to a worldwide audience easily.
Gone are the days of purchasing direct mail lists from a list broker (and being restricted to marketing to the list only once!) Online webforms and simple to use autoresponder services make it easy to manage your internet marketing business yourself simply and inexpensively. You can mail daily, weekly, monthly and use an autoresponder sequence that runs on autopilot, broadcast messages randomly, or use a combination of the two methods for maximum results.
Email is such a powerful form of internet marketing because virtually everyone knows how to use email and most people check their mailboxes regularly. Building a list not only allows you to stay in contact with your subscribers and build a meaningful relationship with them over the long term, but it also generates back end sales the front end costs that are a necessary part of advertising your internet marketing products and promotions.
The most essential component of your internet marketing email campaign is your opt-in page. This is the entry point into your internet marketing system and enables a potential subscriber to provide their name and email address (and any other information that you require). It is crucial to your website’s purpose and is essential that the opt-in form is placed in a primary position on your page or navigation links.
It is also common to make your website’s home page a dedicated opt-in page (also known as a squeeze page in this circumstance). This then allows the visitor no other option but to subscribe to your list to view the contents of your site.
It is also common and good internet marketing practice to provide an opt-in form in every page of content on your site, if you haven’t already made it compulsory to opt-in to your email list to view the content in the first place. List building is a practice that any serious internet marketing professional engages in at every possible opportunity. Using pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-overs and exit pages to capture leads is also very common practice.
Just a final note…
A good opt-in page is laid out in a clean, simple manner for maximum effect and should appear above the fold so that it immediately attracts the attention of a visitor. The use of effective headlines and powerful persuasive sales copy, including testimonials, benefits bullets and bonuses is a must.
Also, so that you can properly inform your potential subscribers of the use that their private details are going to be put, you should include a privacy policy, inform them of the frequency of the emails that they are going to receive from you and let them know whether your subscription process is single or double opt-in and how they can unsubscribe.
Once you have an opt-in page or pages installed, building a list is as simple as following a few proven methods of promoting your pages to potential subscribers. The following are some well-worn examples that have been proven to work time and time again:
1. Utilising JV partners by giving them content to sell for commission or give away to their subscribers on the condition that they promote your opt-in page.
2. Adding an opt-in form to every page of content on your site.
3. Adding an opt-in form to your thank you page.
4. Offering enticing bonuses.
5. Adding your opt-in form or autoresponder email address to your signature files.
6. Using tell-a-friend scripts.
7. Article marketing.
8. Adding your opt-in form to all reports and products that you sell or give away (viral marketing).
9. Safelist marketing (especially if you are a safelist owner).
10. Adding opt-in forms to your social websites and blog.
Email marketing is the most important aspect of your internet marketing. It will increase your profits and conversions dramatically if you are not using it and build you a recurring income stream for as long as you keep promoting to it, particularly if your subscriber base is highly targeted.
The money is in the list!