Modern technology has not only made our everyday lives much more comfortable and convenient, but has also opened unlimited doors of opportunities for every seasoned and budding entrepreneur and one of those is email list. Nowadays, communicating with clients on a local, national and even international scale is by far easier, thanks to the internet and the different software programs designed specifically for only one purpose: to generate more income.
Many businesspersons have turned to the power of the internet to make their businesses grow. Online advertisements and promotions are quickly becoming the trend in today’s world of enterprising.
One excellent online business tool that has the potential to help every business achieve its realization is the email list.
This innovative software program allows every businessperson to keep in constant contact with their clients by sending them their latest newsletters, updates and announcements. But do take note that is just one of the many advantages of using an email list. The email list boosts the chances of making profits and earning more by building and strengthening the relationship between the business owner and their clients. It is this reason that makes a highly-responsive email list a solid investment for every business.
Email List: Keeping Your Clients Updated
An email list in purpose is similar to the traditional mailing system used by many businesses decades ago, in as much as that both of them send out publications like newsletters and others to clients and subscribers. The major difference between the two is that in terms of efficiency, the email list fares better.
With an email list, you avoid time-consuming packaging processes and the days or weeks that deliveries can take. Everything in an email list is automated, which saves more time that could be spent doing something productive for the business or for the family.
There are two types of email list systems available for every business out there. Depending on the type of business you have, you can choose to utilize an announcement list or a discussion list.
Announcement Lists: Letting Your Clients Hear From You
This is also known as a “one-way” list, since it is only the list owner or authorized senders who can send messages, alerts and publications to the subscribers. Whether you are running a small business just taking root or a well-established firm, you would benefit well by using announcement lists to send any of the
following to your present and would-be clients:
- Newsletters
- How to Start and Build a Highly – Responsive Email List
- News alerts
- Product announcements
- Press releases
- Promotional offers
RELATED: Top Affiliate Strategies Worth Considering
Discussion Lists: Letting Your Clients Interact and Grow
This list is exactly the opposite of an announcement list, since this allows both the list owner and the subscribers to send messages. As such, even subscribers will be able to interact with each other.
A discussion list not only builds the owner-client relationship, but the clientclient relationship as well. This is much beneficial for enterprises along the lines of the following:
- Online forums
- Technical support forums
- Interest groups
- Social networking sites
This type of email list also works best when trying to get feedbacks from clients, or working a team in a collaboration project. The use of an email list can help propel any business forward, helping you and other businesspersons realize your aspirations of a successful and thriving enterprise.
Why Should You Use Email Lists?
In general, there are five major benefits that one can enjoy once the use of an email list is employed.
Full-control of the List
One of the benefits of an email list is that the list owner has the freedom to choose which data to send to their subscribers. In addition, you can control most aspects of the list like moderating messages, subscribing and unsubscribing people, archiving messages and many other features.
Send Messages at Lightning Fast Speed
Whenever you come up with a totally irresistible offer or promo, the first thing you would want to do is to send them out to your clients as quickly as possible. With an email list, you could send messages, promotional items, special offers, and whatever you want to in minutes. This is one advantage that the traditional snail mail system cannot beat.
An Automated System
One thing that you will surely appreciate is the fact that this system is fully automatic through the use of an AutoResponder. Here, you can choose and organize which objects you will send your subscribers and leave it like that. How to Start and Build a Highly – Responsive Email List your clients will receive a newsletter, then next week it’s a free music video, and then the week after that a free coupon.
The AutoResponder keeps sending these things automatically and all you haveto do is add more of the stuff that you know your subscribers will love.
Check on Your Clients
Another great thing about email lists is that you can employ the services of tracking companies to help you monitor your clients and subscribers. This allows you to gain better insight about what links they click, what offers and promos work for them, how many of them open your emails, and so much more.
By knowing what your clients and subscribers want, you can come up with different ideas and platforms in order to give them what they came looking for. Remember, if you don’t know what your clients want, then you won’t be able to give it to them. And if you don’t deliver, you might as well say bye-bye to your business.
It’s Cost-effective and Reliable
An email list costs a lot cheaper than the traditional mailing system. As of this writing, employing an email list will only cost you around $20 a month. That’s a lot cheaper than having your newsletters and freebies sent by snail mail. For a minimal amount, you can even enjoy the services of many other companies who work together with your email list service provider.
These are the general benefits that you get when you use an email list. But let us be more thorough by looking at the benefits of announcement lists and discussion lists
Writing a Newsletter Clients Love
Newsletters are one of the best freebies to send your clients and subscribers. Sending newsletters on a regular basis helps you to establish connections between you and your clients. Aside from this, if your clients find your newsletters useful, they may mention it to their friends, families, and acquaintances. This makes your newsletters a valuable marketing tool, as it can help your number of subscribers grow in numbers in a short time.
However, there are two things that you need to remember in order to make a successful newsletter campaign. According to Tamara Gielen, an independent email marketing consultant, the success of a newsletter campaign lies in making newsletters that are relevant in content, and sending them to people
with their permission. If you keep sending irrelevant newsletters to people without their permission, then you may just find yourself blocked from their email addresses or branded as a spammer, which could hurt your business terribly.
Getting Permission
Getting permission is the first step in making a successful newsletter campaign, and you can do this by asking people for their email addresses. If you are having trouble doing so, refer to the earlier parts of this ebook about the tips on how to successfully gather email addresses.
When people give you their email addresses, they are already giving you permission to send them your newsletters. Thus, be sure not to disappoint them – be sure to send newsletters that have great content and free of charge. You have to be careful though, of the so-called “rented lists.” Some companies will offer to provide you with a list of email addresses that you can use in your newsletter campaign. But be wary. Most of the list they provide are old, unused and contains spam traps.
Create Valuable Content
After you get their permission, it’s time to send them the newsletter. But what should your newsletter contain? Obviously, it should contain something relevant and useful for the reader. A subscriber receives tons of emails nowadays, and they don’t have time to read all of them. Thus, they tend to ignore those that do not interest them.
Getting to know what your subscribers want in terms of newsletters can be a tricky task at most, but there are ways to do it. One is by asking them about it whenever they sign up through a checklist. Provide a checklist in the sign up page with a lot of choices. For example, you can make a “what interests you?” box with a couple of choices like arts, tips, events, and so on. Here, they get to tick the boxes of the things that interest them, which serve as your basis for sending them the things that they want.
Another way is to analyze your clients’ behavior. Since your list manager has a tracker, you can review the pages and links that your client has opened and viewed. This way, you can see what they are interested and what topics appeal to them the most, thus giving you an insight as to what newsletter to send them.
Researching on Your Topic
Before you even get to write your newsletter, make sure that you’ve done your research thoroughly. Remember that nobody loves a half-baked potato that is nobody wants to read a newsletter that isn’t well-written and well thought of. In order to help make your research easier, you should have planned about
the format and layout of your newsletter.
Choose the Right Title
The title is one of the most important aspects of a good newsletter. Your titleshould be catchy and interesting; otherwise, your subscribers won’t even bother reading the whole content of your newsletter, no matter how good it is.
Be Brief and Concise
Avoid too many unwanted fillers in your newsletters. Don’t start by telling your subscribers something that they already know. Instead, keep your newsletter brief and concise. Go straight to the point and drive home towards the topic. You can, of course, play with words and get a little creative with your phrases and sentences to spice up your newsletter, but be sure to stay focused and on track.
Impress your Subscribers with Facts
Adding a bit of statistics and other interesting facts to back up your claims is one way of impressing your readers. This helps to build their trust on you and your newsletter because they know that you did your research well.
Polish Your Newsletter
Proofread your newsletter. Make sure that every detail is thoroughly covered, from spelling, grammar and even punctuation. Your subscribers will almost certainly lose faith in a business who can’t even write in straight English.
These are some of the things you should consider when writing your newsletters. Remember that your newsletters reflect what you can give your clients, and if you don’t give them something good, then chances are you won’t have any subscribers left to send your newsletters to in the future.
How to Monetize Your List
Many successful online entrepreneurs will tell you that “money is in the list.” There is nothing truer than this. Many businesses that have taken advantage of email lists were able to get more clients and customers, which meant more income and more profits. Do a bit of googling and you will find hundreds of such success stories in the net. How did they do it? Here are some of the top answers:
Promote Your Products
This is one of the most common ways to earn from an email list. If you have a product that you would like to sell but is having a hard time doing so, then an email list can just be the solution. Send you clients emails about your product, making sure to mention that it is unique, and what makes it stand out among the other competitors.
Asking your long-time customers to give your product a try may be easy, but it can be a real challenge to persuade those who aren’t, so will need to work harder and brush up on your sales talk.
Promote Other Products
If you believe in a product, then you can earn by promoting it to your customers. This is called affiliate marketing.
Here, you are building up another product in the eyes of your customers, and if you are successful, you will receive incentives and profit from the producer of the said product. However, you need to be 100% sure about the product’s quality, since it is your reputation on the line.
Test the product first and think about whether you would recommend this product to your customers or not. Remember, you do not want to ruin the trust that your customers put on you.
Promote a Website
There are many good websites out there, but they don’t get the attention that they deserve. If you happen to come across one, take note of it and add its link into your newsletters and announcements. When you do promote another website, be sure to include all the good things in it. For example, if a website offers a free music download, be sure to mention that in order to encourage your subscribers to pay the site a visit.
Sell a Website or a Domain
If you have websites or domains that you would like to sell, an email list can be of help. You can use your email list to advertise about these websites and domains. If you have good marketing skills, then you just make a fortune out of this.
In conclusion starting an email list is one thing, and maintaining a highly-responsive one is another. If you want your email list and business to thrive and flourish, then you have to work extra hard in making sure that your email list works effectively, and that it stays that way.