***Special Update!*** Already one of the most popular e-mail business automation softwares on the Internet, Corey Rudl has outdone himself by releasing the all-new upgraded and near perfect version of Mailloop 6.0...

By Corey Rudl

Thanks to e-mail, online business owners have the option of instant and repeated communication with an audience of potential clients and previous customers. Not that this is news to you. You're already well-aware that e-mail gives you the power to contact people again and again, promoting your products, your service, your web site, whatever you like… for FREE!

Unfortunately, too often this power goes to the heads of newbie marketers. And this is where the trouble begins… and their business ends!

A poorly designed e-mail campaign is a dangerous thing. You can enrage 90% of your e-mail list… you can be accused of spamming... your ISP can cancel your account… and the list goes on!

If you have any pride in your business whatsoever, then I suggest that you consider the information I’m about to present you with very carefully. I’m about to share with you the key steps that you'll need to follow to guarantee the success of any e-mail marketing promotions you send...

Perhaps the most critical step in guaranteeing the success of your e-mail promotions is that you e-mail a targeted list of opt-in subscribers who have specifically requested to receive information on a particular topic from you. You'll be wasting your time and energy if you don't.

Remember that your job is NOT to sell your product to everyone. Not everyone wants your product. Focus your energy on the people who do! Those who have opted-in to your mailing list, your customers and leads, and individuals who have requested information from your autoresponder are all excellent prospects!

People are more likely to read (as opposed to delete) e-mail that addresses them personally.

For example, by sending your subscriber "Bob Smith" an e-mail that presents his e-mail address directly in the "To:" field, instead of the BBC (blind carbon copy) field, Bob will know that he has given you his e-mail address. He'll be less likely to assume you're some spammer or scam artist trying to sell him another widget he doesn't need.

And by addressing the e-mail "Dear Bob" as opposed to "Dear Everyone" in the salutation, Bob automatically assumes that you know him, making him even more likely to read your e-mail.

In various tests that we have done, we have discovered that personalized e-mail increases the response we receive by a drastic 64%! So I would advise you not to underestimate the power of this seemingly simple technique!

When doing e-mail promotions, your subject line can literally make or break your success -- a critical point that the majority of marketers miss.

Think about all of those e-mails you're probably getting on a daily basis with subjects like:

"MAKE $75,000 EVERY WEEK GUARANTEED!"
"EXPLOSIVE STOCK PICK AT $0.45!!!!"
"newsletter"
"THIS IS NOT SPAM!"

Do you open these e-mails? Because I know I sure don't! The subject line makes it obvious that the e-mail is spam... that it's from someone you don't know... or it doesn't offer a clear benefit that makes you want to read it.

Now let me ask you a question: How many of your legitimate newsletters and e-mails are mistakenly deleted by your subscribers who read your subject lines and assume it must be spam! How many potential sales could you have saved simply by rewriting your subject lines?

Obviously I can't answer these questions for you. However, I CAN teach you how to write subject lines that will compel your subscribers to open and read any e-mail you send them.

When you write your subject lines, you basically have 3 choices:

1. You can make an announcement or give news (e.g.,"IMC shows subscribers how to write killer subject lines").
   
   
2. You can make the reader curious (e.g., "IMC gives subscribers this secret marketing strategy...").
   
   
3. You can emphasize how the reader will benefit from opening your e-mail (e.g., Discover tips for writing subject lines that will increase your sales).

Out of these 3 techniques, you will always be most successful if you write subject lines that state a clear benefit and tell the reader exactly how they are going to save money, save time, make their life easier, etc., by opening and reading your e-mail.

If you can state a benefit AND create curiosity (e.g., Discover this proven marketing strategy that will increase your sales!), so much the better!

But again, the key when writing subject lines is to emphasize benefits by considering your product or service from your customers' point of view...

• How will they benefit from taking the time to read your e-mail?
• What will they learn?
• Is your product/service going to save them time?
• Is it going to save them money?
• Or is it going to improve their lives in some way?

Write subject lines that emphasize these benefits and I guarantee that you'll dramatically increase the number of subscribers who open and read your e-mail.

The first paragraph should make reference to your headline, building further excitement and motivating your potential customer to continue reading. Just because you've convinced them to open your e-mail with a compelling subject line doesn't mean that you’re home free! You need to build more excitement and make them curious about what's to come!

Again, the key is to focus on benefits!

Did you know that how you format your e-mail can literally make or break the success of your e-mail campaign? It's true... If you make mistakes formatting your e-mail to your customers and subscribers, you risk looking unprofessional, destroying your credibility, and having your hard work tossed in the trash without ever being read!

After all, why should readers take your offer seriously if you don't know how to format an e-mail correctly?

Remember that different e-mail programs will display your e-mail differently. Plus, different people will have their personal program set to read their incoming mail in different fonts, different sizes, different widths, etc...

So to ensure that, on average, readers have a similar view of any correspondence you send them, follow these simple formatting tips for text e-mail...

• Use a good text editor.

  As wonderful as Microsoft Word may be, it is NOT the tool to be using when formatting e-mail copy. To skip the quirky formatting mistakes and avoid the frustrating comedy of errors Word frequently generates in a situation like this, I highly recommend using a good text editor.

  My personal favorite is UltraEdit-32, which you can download for a free 45-day trial at http://www.ultraedit.com/downloads/index.html (Registration is $30.)

  However, Notepad and Wordpad, which come with Windows and can be found under Programs>Accessories in your Start menu, will do the trick as well.

• Set your line length to 65 characters.

  Have you ever received an e-mail that looked like this?

  > You might be wondering how anyone could
  >let this
  > happen. After all, wouldn't they notice
  >that their e-mail has been broken up into numerous different
  > lines,
  >each a different length?

  ... I'm sure you've probably received e-mail that looks like this before. It's not only hard to read, it's annoying!

  Fortunately, it's a mistake that's easily avoided by setting your line length to 65 characters (or by setting your right indentation to 2.5"). The typical default width your readers' e-mail clients will open to is 65 characters, so by setting your line length to this width, you'll avoid having long lines of text cut off and displayed like in the example above.

• Use hard carriage returns (i.e. press "Enter") at the end of each line.

  Some older e-mail clients don't actually have "word wrap," so to avoid having your e-mail appear as one long line of text that readers will need to use the horizontal scroll bar to view, manually press "enter" at the end of each line (i.e. every 65 characters).

• Use a fixed-width font.

When formatting your e-mail, do so in a fixed-width font like Courier that uses an equal amount of space to display each character.

For example,

This is Courier.
This is Arial.

As you can see, Courier consistently uses the same amount of space to display each character, while Arial varies in width. This is important because the majority of e-mail clients use fixed-width fonts as their default (the exception being Eudora, which defaults to Arial).

While an e-mail formatted in a fixed-width font typically looks good when displayed in a font like Arial, an e-mail formatted in a font like Arial looks terrible displayed in a fixed-width font. By formatting your e-mail in a fixed-width font, you'll ensure that it looks good no matter what font your reader's e-mail client defaults to.

• Spell check and proofread everything!

  While I'm the first to admit that everyone makes mistakes now and then, there is absolutely no excuse for the blatant errors I see made in many e-mail promotions I receive. Remember that spelling mistakes and poor grammar make you look unprofessional and damage your credibility.

  So before clicking "Send," take that extra minute to spell check your work and have a couple of other people read it. You may save yourself some embarrassment... and prevent lost sales!

• Keep paragraphs 4-5 lines in length -- no longer!

  By keeping your paragraphs 4 to 5 lines in length, you ensure that your e-mail is easy to read. The more white space you use, the better. Long, never-ending sentences that run on for 8 lines get very difficult to follow, causing readers to become frustrated and delete your e-mail.

• Test, test, test!

  Before sending your e-mail to your entire list, take an extra 15 minutes to test how it looks in a variety of e-mail clients such as:

  • Eudora -- free versions at http://www.eudora.com
  • Outlook -- found at http://www.microsoft.com
  • Outlook Express -- found free at http://www.microsoft.com
    
  
  As well as in a couple of web-based e-mail clients such as:
  
  
  • Hotmail -- free account at http://www.hotmail.com
  • Yahoo! -- free account at http://mail.yahoo.com
    
  
  By setting up these different "test accounts," you'll give yourself the opportunity you need to fix any problems and guarantee that all of your subscribers receive the same professional looking e-mail.

At the end of all e-mail you send, it's extremely important that you give people the opportunity to opt-out of (i.e., be removed from) your e-mail database. This is really, really important! I simply can't overemphasize the importance of giving your customers and subscribers the opportunity to be removed from your mailing list.

I know a lot of e-business owners are afraid to include an unsubscribe link at the bottom of their e-mails, but I would argue that those people who want to be removed from your list (a) have no interest in what you're selling anyway, and (b) obviously don't want to buy from you. Why would you anger them by not giving them a legitimate opportunity to be removed from your mailing list?

This is one of the most important techniques that I teach, yet so few people actually do it. When trying to increase the response to your offer, you want to test the headline or opening paragraph, your offer, and your pricing (too cheap can be just as bad as too expensive). And be sure that you test these three things one at a time so you can accurately measure the results.

Testing your offer and your sales copy is the cheapest, most efficient way to maximize your sales! In fact, this should be an ongoing part of your business. Instead of sending your latest promotional letter to your entire customer base, try sending it to a small test group. Doing a trial run will allow you the opportunity to iron out any kinks, saving you time, money, and hassle!

Final Thoughts:

Given the sheer volume of spam and unsolicited junk e-mail that consumers now receive on a daily basis, it comes as no surprise that those who are successful with their e-mail campaigns carefully consider and test each one of the steps we've discussed above.

The three biggest mistakes you could make with your e-mail campaigns are:

1. Not taking precautions to be sure that your legitimate e-mail doesn't look like spam.
   
   
2. Not e-mailing a targeted list of opt-in subscribers; people who have asked to receive information from you and who have give you permission to contact them.
   
   
3. Not testing!

E-mail has made contacting thousands of your customers and subscribers at the click of a button easy -- almost too easy, in fact. And personally, I think this is what gets many new marketers into trouble.

The bottom line is that, today, a successful e-mail campaign requires strategic planning. It won't matter if you've spent a year writing your copy. If you don't carefully follow the seven steps I've outlined above, you'll be no further ahead.

A professionally formatted and thoroughly tested e-mail makes you look like a credible business owner who takes what you do very seriously. It invites readers to examine your e-mail... check out your offer... and seriously consider making a purchase.

Which basically means that, while they require a bit of extra effort, these seven steps can easily translate into increased sales! And I think you'll agree, there's nothing wrong with that.

"Easy-To-Do Automation For Techno-Phobic Web Site Owners Who Want To Stop Losing Valuable Time On Daily Chores And Start Increasing Sales"

There are no two ways about it. E-mail is still the primary way business owners are communicating with their customers and subscribers. E-mail is used to answer questions… follow up with potential customers… confirm purchases… provide information of interest… and maintain relationships. It’s a vital source of income for any successful Internet business.

Now I’m sure you already understand this, but let me ask you a serious question: Are you managing your e-mail as efficiently as you could be? Statistics from a recent Jupiter Media Metrix report say not.

Only 38% of online businesses are reported to be living up to customer’s expectations, responding to their inquiries within 6 hours or less:

• 62% are taking longer than 6 hours to respond…
• 33% are taking 3 days (or longer!) to respond…
• And a shocking 24% of businesses have thrown up their hands and given up responding to customer inquiries entirely!

And all of these disturbing statistics point to the simple fact that, despite all of the technology available, nearly three quarters of web site owners have no idea how to manage their e-mail. After all, why else would you so severely neglect the critical and extremely valuable relationship with your customers and subscribers?

I’ve seen it happen to some really intelligent business owners. You start out with the best of intentions. You grow your web site traffic… you run a few successful promotions… and suddenly you go from personally answering a handful of e-mails each day to drowning under hundreds of customer inquiries, questions, and requests… Managing your e-mail suddenly becomes a full-time job!

If you plan to grow your business, you can’t afford to be spending your days chained to your computer, replying to e-mail after e-mail individually. Especially if you want to grow quickly! Even if you’re using canned messages (i.e. pre-written e-mails that can just be cut & paste), looking after your e-mail one by one can fast become overwhelming.

And this is where a lot of new e-business owners find themselves stuck. You may be there yourself right now. You’re tired of wasting your days replying to the same e-mails over and over again… but automation is even more intimidating. Replying to hundreds of e-mails each day probably seems a lot less daunting than finally buckling down and getting automated.

I know where you’re coming from… The mysterious scripts and software that seem to magically automate the average e-commerce web site can be a bit intimidating for a new e-business owner.

You know that, somehow, automation should give you the power to…

• Anticipate and instantly respond to the needs of your customers by answering common questions on the spot.

• Give potential customers the exact information they need, exactly when they need it – when they’re still a hot prospect – so they can make that important buying decision.

• Capture the e-mail addresses of visitors to your web site so that you can market to them again and again – for free!

• Increase the perceived value of your web site by offering free reports or articles that can be e-mailed to prospects the minute they request them!

• Dramatically reduce the time you waste on daily chores so you can start growing your business instead of getting trapped running it!

• Start capitalizing on the lifetime value of your existing customers – automatically increasing your sales without increasing your workload!

… and much more.

You see other e-businesses doing it all around you – taking advantage of this mysterious "automation," freeing up their time to increase their profits even more. But how the heck is everyone doing it? Is it "I Dream of Jeannie" wizardry? Cross your arms, wiggle your nose, and voila – instant automation?

Almost…

Like anything, you can make the automation of your web site as simple or as complicated as you want. Large e-commerce sites hire programmers with education and experience to put together intuitive automation systems that make learning to translate Greek to Latin seem easy. Fortunately, the average web site owner just starting out doesn’t need anything nearly this complicated (or confusing!).

Did you know that all of the automation I’ve mentioned so far in this article can be accomplished with one simple tool called "autoresponders"?

Automate Your Customer Service And Dramatically Increase
The Sales You Close With This One Simple Tool...

Now don’t panic!

Autoresponders are not difficult to use… So take a deep breath and let’s get past any techno-phobia that might be preventing you from making your life a lot easier – and your business a lot more profitable!

An autoresponder is basically an e-mail tool that is designed to automatically respond to any incoming messages to a particular e-mail address that you set up. Confused? Then let me give you an example that will clearly illustrate exactly how this works…

Example #1:

A visitor arrives at your web site and reads your sales copy. They're interested in your product, but they have a question that needs to be answered before they'll consider making a purchase. So they e-mail you at faq@yoursite.com (an e-mail address you’ve set up for just this purpose).

Your experience answering customer questions has shown you that there are 10 or 12 questions people ask over and over again. So rather than answering each person individually, you put together a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) e-mail. You spend an hour or so writing it, making sure that it's thorough and that it ultimately directs the reader back to your web site to close the sale.

You then set up this FAQ e-mail in an autoresponder, so when the visitor e-mails their question to faq@yoursite.com, they are automatically sent your FAQ e-mail. It’s neat, clean, and simple.

The e-mail your visitor receives might read something like this:

Within 5 minutes of sending their e-mail to faq@yoursite.com, the visitor receives your e-mail via your autoresponder. They read through your FAQ e-mail and find the answer to their question.

The visitor is impressed because…

• You anticipated their needs
• You replied instantly
• You answered their questions
• You made it easy for them to e-mail you any further questions

… and this means that you look extremely professional. This instant reply also lends your business a measure of credibility because you've made it clear that your customers are your first priority and that you take your business very seriously.

Do you think this visitor will go back to your web site to make their purchase? Chances are very good that they will. In fact, the probability that you will close this sale is much higher than if you had forced this person to wait a week for a reply. Or hadn't answered at all.

How much time did this take you? None. You wrote the e-mail and then used the autoresponder to automate your customer service. You now provide fast, high-quality customer service, decrease your workload, and only respond to customers who have unique questions or situations that need your personal touch. It’ll take you just minutes each day to respond to customer inquiries instead of the hours it did before you got automated!

Let me give you another example…

Example #2:

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, then you already know that a critical step in closing sales involves establishing your credibility. And establishing your credibility, in many cases, requires repeated contact with potential customers.

A good way to initiate a "second contact" with a potential customer is by using autoresponders.

A visitor arrives at your web site and starts looking around. They notice that you offer a free article titled "The Best Ways To Save Time And Money." They click on freearticle@yoursite.com and are prompted to send a blank e-mail to this e-mail address.

The visitor is quite content to take 30 seconds to do this because they want this valuable information.

So they send a blank e-mail to freearticle@yoursite.com to request the article from your autoresponder... they spend a few more minutes looking around your web site... and then they leave. They have a clear interest in your product or service (they requested your article on the subject, right?), but they're just not ready to buy yet.

Now this is the really powerful part. The visitor checks their e-mail half an hour after they've left your web site… perhaps even the next day… and discovers your free article waiting in their Inbox. They read it because they requested it and therefore already know it contains information that is of interest to them.

So this is your second chance to:

1. Prove your expertise,
2. Establish your credibility,
3. Develop a relationship with them by providing valuable information they can use, and
4. Direct them back to your web site to close the sale!

Pretty powerful, right?

Now imagine how you could increase your sales even more by sending this potential customer a follow-up e-mail – using the e-mail address they gave you when they requested the article – and asking them if there is anything else you could help them with? Or even by sending them a special offer as a "thank you" for reading your article?

The possibilities are endless really. You could offer autoresponders like…

• salesinfo@yoursite.com – for people who would prefer to receive your sales information in an easy-to-print e-mail they can read offline. (Not everyone has free Internet access, so this saves them money!)

• article@yoursite.com – to send interested potential customers copies of articles that initiate that important "second contact" and remind them about your business, your products, and your web site. Once you have their e-mail address (which they obviously have to give you in order to receive the article via e-mail), you can contact them again to follow up very easily!

• faq@yoursite.com – to answer potential customer’s questions on the spot, while they’re still a hot prospect, and dramatically increase the sales you're closing.

• instructions@yoursite.com – for customers who have purchased your product, service, software, etc… but need a bit of extra help using it. This simple e-mail could answer commonly asked technical questions automatically!

• report@yoursite.com – to give visitors to your site valuable information about your particular industry and increase the chances that they’ll return to your web site again and again as valuable resource.
  
  
• info@yoursite.com – if you don't have time to reply to a customer's inquiry for a day or two, you can at least send them an e-mail via autoresponder to let them know you've received their message and will be getting back to them in 48 hours. An instant, professional reply like this ensures your customer isn't sitting at their computer for hours, impatiently waiting for your answer.

By sending each new customer a confirmation of their order, you'll put their minds at ease. They'll know that you're a legitimate business who is going to follow through on your promises, not some scam artist who has just stolen their credit card information. This is also a good way to remind your customers when they can expect their purchase to be delivered, what the charge to their credit card was, and any product tracking information they might need.

Just think about how much time this will save you! Are you excited? Yup… me too.

But How The Heck Do You Make This Amazing Automation Happen?

We’re back at square one, aren’t we? You want the autoresponders and the powerful automation they can bring your e-business… you have a general understanding of how they work… but how the heck do you add them to your web site?

Good question. You have 4 choices:

1. Your Web Host: If you are willing to commit to a long-term contract (i.e. one year or more), you can sometimes get a couple of autoresponders for free from your web host. If you only need 1 or 2 autoresponders, this might be a good option; however, the reality is, if you’re running a successful business, you’re going to need more. Plus, you don’t really want to depend on your web host for this service. If they go out of business or go down, you can lose your entire autoresponder system.
   
   
2. Autoresponders With Rotating Ads: You can get "free" autoresponders if you are willing to let other companies advertise in your message. However, I don’t really recommend this. You can’t control the ads that appear in your e-mails, these ads can really distract your reader from your sales message, and you appear "unprofessional" because it’s obvious you’re using a "free" service. So you’re basically giving someone else free advertising, with few benefits to you. Free isn’t always as good as it might sound.
   
   
3. Paid Autoresponder Services: You could also use a paid autoresponder service. This can give you flexibility in deciding exactly what autoresponder plan is right for you without being forced to include advertisements in your message. You'll also have greater flexibility to customize your autoresponders than if you were to use a free autoresponder service.
   
   The only real drawback is that they can get quite costly. Paid autoresponder services can cost as much as $20 per month per autoresponder, while others will charge you a fee each time someone requests your information. If you decide to go this route, be sure that you really shop around because the cost can get out of control very quickly if you're not careful.
   
   
4. Free Unlimited Autoresponders with Mailloop: You already know that the Mailloop software is absolutely chock-full of killer features that make tedious e-mail tasks a breeze. But on top of it’s e-mail and newsletter automation features, it can also be used to send out an unlimited number of autoresponders directly from your home computer. If you can install software, you can use these autoresponders. It’s that easy. You’re 100% in control and they’re totally customizable.
   
   I won’t overdo it here; I know that you’ve already heard a lot about this software. Just know that it can save you tons of cash and stress in the long run, and you don’t have to be concerned about limiting your autoresponders because of a tight budget! If you want to learn more about getting free unlimited autoresponders with Mailloop, then you can click here now.

Final Thoughts:

Don't be intimidated by this simple technology. You'll do your business a great disservice. Like I said, if you can install and use software (it's as easy as clicking a few buttons and following a few instructions), then you can easily use autoresponders to automate.

Ideally, your goal should be to get automated and then grow... but some of you may already be drowning in e-mail. If that's you, don't keep putting this off! E-mail automation is going to be critical to the success of your e-business.

If you're automated and using autoresponders to manage daily chores, then you're going to have time to focus on promotions and growing. If you're drowning in e-mail, you're going to severely handicap your sales and income because you'll be too focused on trying to just stay afloat.

Autoresponders are easy to set up and they offer a wide variety of opportunities to automate different aspects of your business. From customer service... to order confirmations... to following up with potential customers... it's an easy way to give customers the instant service they're demanding, while increasing your sales and actually freeing yourself from tedious routine chores.

It's not a technique to be taken lightly...

"7 Easy-To-Do Action Steps For Attracting Hundreds Of
New Subscribers And Growing Your Opt-in E-mail List"

I think it really goes without saying that a newsletter is a powerful marketing tool. Any promotions that you send to your customers and subscribers in the future will be that much more successful because with your newsletter you will have…

Sounds great, right? But now you’re probably left wondering, "How do I get people to subscribe?" After all, you can write hundreds of newsletters, but if you only have a handful of subscribers, it can be a lot of work for little reward.

The big mistake I see a lot of e-business owners making is thinking that simply posting a "subscribe today" box on their web sites -- and then forgetting about it -- is going to attract subscribers by the thousands. Even if your web site is highly trafficked, this is going to produce disappointing results.

You need to be prepared to actively promote your newsletter, much the same way you would promote any other product or service online.

Yes. Definitely promote your newsletter on your web site. But the keyword here is "promote." How motivating is it for a visitor to give you his or her name and e-mail address when presented with a subscribe box titled, "Subscribe to my free newsletter"?

Why? Why should I subscribe? How will I benefit from subscribing? What am I going to get? Just because your newsletter is "free," doesn’t mean I want it. There are plenty of free newsletters out there I could subscribe to. What makes yours different or special?

You really need to "sell" your free newsletter to potential subscribers. In one or two short, exciting sentences clearly state the benefits of subscribing to your newsletter. For example, if your web site was golf related, you might say something like,

"Subscribe to the Free 'Golf Tips' Newsletter and receive monthly tips and advice from Pro Golfers. Improve your swing, hear about world renowned golf courses, learn which clubs the experts prefer, plus much more!"

It sounds a lot more interesting than "Subscribe to my free newsletter," don't you think? Visitors to your web site will think so, too!

The other tip I’d like to share is about where you should place your newsletter subscription box on your web site. First of all, don’t hide it. Your goal should be to make sure that everyone who visits your web site is offered the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter at least once, if not twice.

Your newsletter subscription box should appear "above the fold" (i.e., it should be immediately visible on the first screen) of your homepage. This is where you’ll get the best response -- and the most subscribers!

Have you offered your existing customers a subscription to your newsletter? If you haven’t, you should e-mail them an offer like this as soon as possible! This is an easy way to get a flood of new subscriptions.

And be sure to add a subscription offer to your "thank you for ordering" page or e-mail. If someone is interested enough in your product or service to purchase it, you can be sure they’ll want to subscribe to your newsletter. Don’t miss this opportunity to maintain contact with existing customers!

If you’ve offered a free subscription to your customers but received a poor response, consider making things a little more interesting by offering them a "special gift" like a free article or eBook when they subscribe. This extra incentive should dramatically boost the number of new subscriptions you receive.

An electronic signature – also referred to as a "sig file" – is a three to six line footer that you can attach to the bottom of your e-mail messages and public forum postings. And it's a prime spot to advertise your newsletter!

Unlike a lot of other blatant advertisements, a sig file is universally accepted, so take advantage of this perfect opportunity to plug your newsletter! Anyone who receives an e-mail from you will also receive your invitation to subscribe to your newsletter.

Chances are, if you’re e-mailing them, they already have a direct interest in your industry or niche, so take advantage of this and offer them a free subscription right at the bottom of any e-mail you send!

A great trick for increasing your subscriber base involves contacting other newsletters that relate to your target market and offering to swap ads with them. Tell the newsletter owners that you'll promote their newsletter to your subscriber base if they'll return the favor. This is a great way for both of you to increase your readership!

Subscribers will appreciate the recommendation of another source of quality information, and as long as the sites you swap with are complementary and not competitive, it's not going to hurt your business at all.

Another good place to promote your newsletter and locate targeted potential subscribers is in newsgroups, discussion lists, and forums that relate directly to your industry or niche. Simply post a brief description of your newsletter and a link to your subscription page.

Offer or announce "gift subscriptions" in your newsletter that encourage your current subscribers to send gift subscriptions to friends. You can automate your web site to send the gift subscription with a little blurb stating whom the gift is from and what they will be receiving (and the opportunity to unsubscribe, of course!).

A friend of mine has built most of his mailing list doing this alone. He went from 5,000 subscribers to over 16,000 subscribers in less than a year just using this one technique.

Renting e-mail addresses from third-party list providers is a route that some new newsletter owners choose because you are given quick access to a list of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have "opted" to receive e-mail on topics that interest them.

You can usually expect to be charged 5 to 20 cents per deliverable message, and you should expect any e-mail addresses that are "bad" or that "bounce" to be replaced by addresses that are current.

If you decide to use a service like this, it's absolutely critical that you find out how the e-mail addresses were obtained. You want e-mail addresses that have been collected ethically and responsibly, and this means that you want the e-mail addresses of people who (a) are directly interested in your product, industry, or field of expertise, and (b) have given their permission and "opted-in" to the list.

Important Note: If you buy lists of e-mail addresses that have been "harvested" from newsgroups, classified ad sites, online services, etc., you’ll be accused of spamming! These people have NOT given you permission to contact them, and you can get into a LOT of trouble this way. Again, I can’t overstate the importance of making sure that the e-mail addresses you rent have been collected ethically and responsibly!

A few reputable third-party list providers who offer targeted opt-in e-mail lists are:

Final Thoughts:

Ultimately, your goal should be to develop a relationship with your subscribers through quality articles in your newsletter before you even consider trying to sell them anything. Give them quality information that they will benefit from to establish your credibility and develop a rapport with them.

Remember that the true value lies in the relationship that you develop with the person who owns the e-mail address… not in the e-mail address itself. It will be the relationship that you develop with your subscribers that will result in big sales both now and in the future -- an important point to keep in mind no matter how many new subscribers you attract.

"Targeting and Personalizing Your E-mail Promotions to Boost Your Bottom Line"

Let me ask you a very important question: What are you doing to make sure that your e-mail promotions are getting noticed, read and acted on by the people you are sending them to?

I'm not talking about writing killer copy -- although that's essential -- or offering a great product or service. I'm asking how YOUR customers and subscribers know that YOUR offer is relevant to them specifically. What is it that makes each and every one of them individually sit up and take notice of your e-mail promotions?

The most successful e-mail marketers will answer these questions without even thinking, and just about every one of them will mention the two strategies we're going to be discussing today: targeting and personalization.

Once you've learned how to exploit these two powerful marketing concepts, you'll dramatically increase the effectiveness of ALL your promotions.

E-mail Success Strategy #1: Targeting

Using e-mail to target different segments of your audience is one of the single most effective ways I've found to market products or services on the Internet. And if you've been collecting opt in e-mail addresses on your web site, then you can get started right away! Here's how:

The simplest way you can market to different segments of your opt-in list is by targeting them based on whether they are (a) existing customers, or (b) visitors to your site who have opted in to receive your free newsletter, eBook, etc.

The message you send to your customers might focus on selling them an upgrade to a product they already own. Because you've already earned their trust through a previous sale, this promotion should do quite well.

Of course, you'll need to approach your subscribers -- those people who haven't made a purchase from you yet -- from a slightly different angle. You might try offering them a 25% discount off their very first purchase, for example.

Here are some other techniques you can use for targeting your customers and subscribers:

• Target customers who own a particular product with offers for related or complementary products.
  
• Target your best customers -- those who have made the most purchases from you -- with a special "Thank You" promotion.
  
• Target customers who haven't made a purchase for a long time with an offer to win back their business.
  
• Target your customers and subscribers based on their geographic location.
  
• Target your customers and subscribers based on their expressed interests. (What kind of music they like, for example.)
  
• Target your subscribers with a "First Purchase Bonus Gift" that gives first-time customers a free bonus with their purchase.
  
• Target your subscribers with a "Tell-A-Friend" promotion. Offer them a free bonus for recommending your product, service, or newsletter to their friends.

Now, you'll notice that some of these strategies require that you know a bit more about the people on your opt-in list than just whether they are customers or subscribers.

By collecting more specific information from the people who are visiting your site, you'll be able to target your e-mail promotions in some very sophisticated ways. Here's an example:

Suppose your product is a book on how to buy foreclosed properties from the bank. Your opt-in form might ask people whether they're interested in buying property for investment purposes or for use as their personal residence.

Armed with this information, you could send two different promotions targeting these two different groups. One could outline the benefits of buying properties as investments, and the other could focus on buying your family home at a substantial savings.

And since you would already have an opt-in form set up at your site to collect e-mail addresses, it would be really easy for you to customize this form so your visitors could tell you WHY they're interested in foreclosed properties. Your form could read something like this:

By targeting different segments of your audience with a promotion that is specific to their interests, you can just about guarantee that your results will be dramatically higher.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember that the form you use to collect opt-in e-mail addresses has to be simple and easy to use. If you start using this form to ask too many questions, you're going to see a substantial decrease in the number of opt-ins you get.

If you are going to ask your subscribers for more information than just their names and e-mail addresses, I highly recommend limiting yourself to ONE additional question.

I hope you can see how powerful this strategy is! It allows you to talk to your customers -- and prospective customers -- about things that matter to them specifically. And when you target your offers to meet their specific needs, your response rate will improve significantly.

And the best part is that once you've got this kind of system in place, there's hardly any extra work on your part!

E-mail Success Strategy #2: Personalization

Guess what? If you've been collecting people's names when they opt into your list, then you've got a very powerful piece of information. Nothing makes people sit up and take notice like hearing -- or in this case, seeing -- their own name.

Personalizing your promotions is one of the most widely used tricks in direct marketing, yet it still works like absolute magic!

I learned firsthand how effective this technique is a few years ago when I decided to conduct a little marketing experiment. I took a small list of my customers and split it in half, then sent an e-mail to each group that was exactly the same, with only ONE exception. The subject line of the first e-mail read:

here's all the info you need

The subject line of the second e-mail, which had EXACTLY the same body as the first e-mail, had been customized to display the recipient's name. For example:

Bob, here's all the info you need

And that was the ONLY difference between the two campaigns! The body of the e-mail was identical in both cases, and so was the offer. It was just that one small change in the subject line that boosted the response by 64%!

As you can see, if you HAVEN'T been personalizing your e-mail promotions, now is definitely a good time to start. Can youimagine what a 64% increase in sales and profits would do for YOUR bottom line?

Of course, you can personalize the body of your e-mail as well as the subject line, and you can use ANY information you've collected about your customers and subscribers, not just their names.

For example, let's suppose you are operating an online pet products business, and that you know what kinds of pets your customers and subscribers own.

Using this information, you can add another layer of customization to your e-mail promotions. You could start your e-mail off like this:

Hi Susan,

I have some news that is going to make your cat extremely happy. For the next 2 days only, a huge selection of cat accessories are being blown out at almost 50% off the regular price.

Putting together a campaign like this is a lot easier than you might think! Many e-mail marketing solutions will allow you to easily merge your customized data into the message. The example above would look something like this before you sent it out:

Hi [name],

I have some news that is going to make your [pet] extremely happy. For the next 2 days only, a huge selection of [pet] accessories are being blown out at almost 50% off the regular price.

And feel free to get creative and personalize your e-mail promotions with whatever information you've collected about your customers and subscribers. Here are a few examples:

• City or state -- I've got a special offer for residents of [city].
  
• Products purchased -- As my way of thanking you for your recent purchase of [product], I've got a special discount offer for you.
  
• Date of last purchase -- Your purchase from us on [date] means you're eligible for a special 50% discount on your next purchase.
  
• Information specific to your site -- (i.e., type of pet owned, favorite sports team, type of vehicle owned) -- We've got a very special offer for [favorite_team] fans that entitles you to 35% off your next purchase.

Key Secret: Putting Both Strategies Together

Used individually, targeting and personalization are powerful marketing strategies, but put them together and look out! An e-mail promotion that incorporates both of these techniques -- and uses them effectively -- is truly a force to be reckoned with!

And there are some really clever ways to target and personalize your e-mail promotions all at the same time without doing ANY extra work! Here's exactly how to do it:

Let's keep using the example of the pet products site. You know that some of your members are dog owners and some are cat owners. Assuming you have the right kind of e-mail marketing solution, all you have to do is put together an e-mail that looks something like this:

Subject: [firstname], your [pet] will thank you

Dear [firstname],

I have some news that is going to make your [pet] extremely happy. For the next three days only, we are blowing out a great selection of [pet] supplies at huge savings!

For example, many of you already know that I've just released "My Email Manager," which will allow you to customize up to 100 fields of data about your customers and subscribers. This level of custom personalization simply wasn't being offered by the other e-mail broadcast services, and that's exactly why I insisted that it be included when I was designing this solution.

I have made sure that "My Email Manager" includes absolutely everything, including sequential autoresponders, newsletter management and automated scheduling, e-mail promotion management and tracking... plus all the advanced features that the other services just weren't able to provide for you.

And the best part is that I have designed all these features to be extremely easy to use! Users have been raving about the simple interfaces and step-by-step wizards that literally walk you through every aspect of creating and managing a successful online marketing program. To learn more, please go to:

http://www.myemailmanager.com


Final Thoughts:

It's no coincidence that the most successful marketers --both online and offline -- target and personalize their promotions whenever they possibly can. The reason more businesses DON'T customize their e-mail promotions is because they think it takes a high level of technical expertise to pull it off.

And while that used to be the case, technological advances have made it easy for even beginners to deliver professional-looking e-mail campaigns.

These days, sending a targeted and personalized e-mail promotion to a large list of your customers and subscribers isn't much more complicated than sending a message to a friend. You just compose your e-mail, select who you want to send it to, and hit "Send."

Once you see how easy it is, you'll be able to dramatically boost your sales and profits by always sending out e-mail promotions that are targeted, personalized, and relevant.

Your customers and subscribers will appreciate the effort, too! It will let them know that your business is really paying attention to them on an individual level -- and believe me, that's going to be great for business!

Corey Rudl's best-selling software product, Mailloop 6.0 is one of the most complete e-mail management solutions you'll EVER find -- anywhere! You can easily save hundreds or even thousands of valuable hours by automating literally ALL your e-mail chores. This all-new version contains super-charged functionalities and an improved, easy-to-use interface that customers all over the Internet have been raving about.

P.S. Have you gotten your hands on Corey's Best-selling E-mail business automation software, the brand new Mailloop version 6.0 yet? His updated version is jam-packed with features that allow you to save 25 pieces of information about each new subscriber, build your list from zero to 1,000's of opt-in subscribers, manage an unlimited number of lists at no extra cost, send yourself "test" messages at multiple "test accounts", automatically distribute your eBooks & registration codes and many, many more!

P.P.S. This version comes with additional FREE bonus giveaways (worth $398.00), but not for long! That's not all, Corey is also giving a 90-day double risk-free guarantee for you to try it out right now! If you're not satisfied with it for whatever reason, you get your full 100% refund -- no questions asked. Period. How can you possibly lose? Click here to learn more about his best offer yet! 

 

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