Okay, Lesson Learned

Two interesting experiences yesterday as a result of our recent email series about online domination:

First, we had a message via Aweber from someone who had decided to unsubscribe from our list on the basis that they didn't agree with the idea of 'dominating a market' or 'squeezing out the competition'. Cooperation and sharing were the way forward, not competition.

Fair enough, and I can see how cooperation helps many businesses do better and serve their customers better. Although I was disappointed to see someone unsubscribing (I must stop taking this so personally) I knew I would get over it. Anyway, the message was written in a friendly way.

The second interesting experience came later in the evening, at the launch of the Towergate Accumulator Challenge - see our Fifty Quid Challenge website. Two people, totally unprompted, made a point of saying how much they'd enjoyed receiving that very same email series. Not only that, they both said they had saved the emails to read again later.

We often get people saying how much they enjoy our emails, but this was the first time two subscribers had said exactly the same thing about the very same sequence.

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice - although the online domination emails are free, of course! You can get all seven of them, one per day, when you visit the Online Domination Website and leave your name and email address.

And you can choose to act on them, or not, and you can unsubscribe at any time. You'll get lots of other great marketing tips if you stay with us, though.

Roy

A Lesson in Email Marketing

Actually, this lesson applies to any advertising and selling you do, through whatever medium.

It's just that it's so easy to measure it with email marketing (and so inexpensive, not to say effective...)

Anyway, we had a reminder of this principle recently, more or less by accident.

We use email marketing quite a lot. Tracking the results is always fascinating and illuminating. So a 100% click-through rate for a download we gave away gave me quite a kick, I must say.

Especially as the open rate for that email was only about 25%!

So yes, over four times as many people clicked the link as actually opened the email, which I've never seen before.

And the lesson? We 'accidentally' took away the risk, by using the words 'just download' in the subject line.

Meaning, not only did people not have to pay, or even sign up with another list, it seems most people realised they didn't even have to open the email. So maybe we appealed to their lazy side, too...

So, several lessons, actually.

1. Taking away the risk dramatically improves response

2. 100% response IS possible

3. Email marketing really does work

4. When you make things really easy and obvious that makes a big difference

5. We really should emphasise how we ALWAYS remove the risk from buying our products, with our no-quibble guarantees!

Until next time, to prosperity - it IS still possible.

Roy

PS (Always have a PS) here are some of our products, and they're all guaranteed:

http://www.nicheseminarsecrets.com/

http://www.completemarketingmanual.com/

http://www.thelifecoachingmanual.com/

Is Email Marketing Dead?

Hello again.

Judging by the number of emails we all send and receive every day, email marketing is still very much with us.

But how many of those emails are read and acted upon? Most of us have some kind of spam filter, and then we delete a lot of the mail that gets past that filter, without even opening it.

Still, I'm betting you read at least a few email messages every day, and if most of those are from friends, family and colleagues, there will be a percentage that nonetheless contain a sales message of some kind. And if you think you never read any of those, then they're probably slipping under your radar! Score one to the email marketer.

The ones you do notice are also succeeding, of course.

'Succeeding' doesn't have to mean persuading you to buy - marketing isn't just about closing the sale today - it means getting you to 'receive' the marketing message, because all marketing is a process, not an event.

So every message you open is another step towards an eventual sale (or it's another step towards your losing interest and unsubscribing), just as every email you send could be...

Because you don't just have to receive all these emails every day, you can send them, too. It's really quite a simple process and it's amazingly cheap (and therefore cost-effective) if you choose to do it yourself. Even hiring someone to do it for you, using their copywriting skills and experience, needn't cost the earth, and results will usually be even better.

When you target your old and existing customers you'll multiply their lifetime value to you.

You needn't worry about alienating people. We're talking about emailing your customers, not your friends here. If a few do unsubscribe, ask yourself this: do you really need to stay in contact with 'customers' who don't buy anything and don't want to hear from you?

So, is email marketing dead?

No; but maybe, for you, it is sleeping...

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS You won't be surprised to learn that email marketing is one of the services we offer at Cinnamon Edge. You can read more about it in The Complete Marketing Manual or by signing up for our newsletter and free reports, using the form on this page.

A 265,719 List - Free

Just a quick article today, to mention an amazing but very real opportunity.

One of the biggest obstacles to many would-be online marketers is building a 'safelist' of opted-in email addresses. Without those, email marketing is dead before it even starts...

And even 24 percent of nothing is still nothing.

Here's the solution: Smart Safelist.com

Roy Everitt, Writing For Smart Results

At Least Something Works!

Hello again.

Frustrating isn't quite the word when you've gone to the trouble of directing people to a website, only to find you can't update the content to give them what you've promised.

The mysteries of Internet Explorer and/or Google conspired to prevent me updating this page yesterday, but I'm here now.

And the plan was to tell you how the death of email marketing has been greatly exaggerated. To point out that any other advertising medium that could deliver a twenty-four percent response would be lauded to the hills. And any that subsequently delivered over sixty percent of those responders to the advertised event would be hailed as revolutionary.

It wasn't lauded (except by me) and there's nothing very revolutionary about email marketing. I guess it depends on three things:

1. How targeted the original list is
2. How good the offer is
3. How well we write the emails

So we can probably say we got three out of three for our last campaign. Fifty attendees from a list of about three hundred people (and from just under eighty opt-ins) has to be good.

So when I finished congratulating myself for that success I could only think I should be doing this kind of thing for a living!

Then I remembered I was, decided to tell a few people about it, and hit the brick wall that either Microsoft or Google temporarily threw up in my path.

Still, I'm here now, I've told you about it and I can only ask one question: how would a twenty-four percent response to your next campaign help YOUR business?

Roy Everitt, Writing for Amazing Results