Ok, I Have An Email Marketing List, Now What?

So today we’ll talk about the finer points of running a dynamic email marketing list.  If you are really a beginner, and have only ever been on a few lists, you might want to sign up for a few more and just watch what messages are sent out and how.

Pay special attention to the messages that are selling something – how are they worded?  Do they bother you?  Do they feel out of place?  How often are marketing messages versus informational messages sent out?  Do you think it’s a good balance or would you do it differently?

A great email marketing list to sign up for is Tiffany Dow’s.  Just search for her in Google.  This is an Internet Marketing list, where she discusses everything she’s doing as it relates to Internet Marketing.

She also tells her subscribers when she creates new PLR articles, because she runs a PLR store and many people on her Internet Marketing list buy PLR from her too.

She also creates challenges for her subscribers, where she challenges them to take action every day, or learn how to brand themselves online.

She is at the far end of the spectrum in that she sends out normally one or more messages to her list every day.  She’s extremely active.  She is also a great model to follow as a trusted marketer.  She’s very good at developing relationships with her subscribers.

I believe she does have an autoresponder series for when you first sign up, and then after that she also sends out continual broadcast messages.

Another email marketing list that provides a good example of successful email marketing is the Early to Rise list.  This list is a Make Money Online / Personal Development list and it’s a good one to study.

There are many guest posts and lots of superb, actionable information.  The messages are always positive, uplifting, and encouraging.  The author’s want you to get up off your butt and do something today!

And then about once every 3 or 4 posts they send out a pure marketing message. Sometimes the product is an personal development or Internet Marketing message – and sometimes it’s something completely unrelated.  Like one time there was a colon cleanse message.

Sending out a message unrelated to your content is always risky because some people might unsubscribe, but some people are willing to take that risk.  There must be a good profit in it, or they wouldn’t do it.

Dissecting other email marketing lists like this can give you a good idea of where to start with your list and exactly what kind of a tone is right for you.

Now back to your own email marketing list – what should you do with it?

1. Create a welcome message.  The welcome message will tell your subscribers what to expect from your list and tells them who you are, plus tells them how to get any free information you may have promised.
2. Create some followup messages.  Followup messages are messages you set and forget, but they incrementally introduce your subscribers to information you want them to have.  It could be anything.

For example, a travel website could send out followup messages that talk about how to save money in the vacation location, and at the same time introduce the subscribers to any affiliate products that help the subscriber save money.  Boom, possible instant sales on autopilot.

That’s really all that you MUST do with your email marketing list, but as it evolves, you will probably want to track reports to see which messages are being opened and which aren’t, plus try to increase your open rate by changing things like the title.

Basically, what you really need to do NOW is ANYTHING.  Get started and tweak as you go along.  There are many lessons to be learned on what’s going to work best for you, but you can’t learn any of them until you have an email marketing list and you are sending out messages.

About Lewis Leake

Lewis Leake is a part-time affiliate marketer. His main job is a Senior Developer in the IT department of a large regional grocery business.