What Is An Autoresponder And How Does It Work?

What is an autoresponder? An autoresponder is a service which allows you to automatically send out emails to a group, or to several different groups, of people.

The key things to know are that:

• subscribers sign up to receive emails from you


• once the emails are written, the sending process is automatic


• using email in this way is an astonishingly effective way to communicate

To get started you will have to first sign up to an autoresponder service such as RocketResponder and then set up a list within the autoresponder software for each group of people with whom you want to communicate.

For some people just one list is all they ever need but other people who use autoresponders may have multiple lists to target different groups.

Gaining subscribers

Next you will want to invite people to join your list. Typically this is done by asking them to provide you with their name and email address in order to receive emails from you.

So if you are a business the emails could be mainly about your business and any special offers you are running while bloggers tend to send emails when they have written a new post (a good autoresoponder will automatically do this for you either every time you post or at a frequency decided by you.)

Sometimes people like to include a gift in return for people signing up to their autoresponder list (which is also called a marketing list or simply an email list.) This may take the form of a discount on their first order, a free report on the subject area of interest or some tips and tricks that subscribers may like to know.

Communicating with subscribers

Now that you have names on your list you will need to talk to these people. After all they have given you their email address for that very purpose.

Typically you will write a short series of emails which go out to each new subscriber in the days, weeks (or even months) after they sign up to your list.

So if I join your list I might get a welcome email on day one, an introductory email on day two, something else on day three and then more emails on day six, 12  and 18.

You write the emails once, set the frequency you want them delivered and then each time someone new joins they get all your email series, in the order you wrote them and on the days you want them to get them. There is no further action required on your part.

The huge benefits of this are that:

• your time is freed up to get on with the things you need to do


• every single subscriber gets the same series of messages…even if you have 100 people sign up in a day, nobody gets left out. (Try handling all that on your own without an autoresponder.)

The other cool thing is that you can send emails to your lists at any time you want. So if you want to inform your subscribers about your new service which launches next week then write one email, press send, and everyone on your list gets to hear the news right away.

Some autoresponders are free, but these tend to have limited functionality or may impose limits to how many emails you can send or how many subscribers you can have on your list.

The paid autoresponders allow you to have more flexibility with how you communicate with your subscribers and can give you more data you may find useful including how many people opened your emails or clicked on your links.

Most paid services will charge you based on the number of subscribers you have – the price goes up as your list size grows. RocketResponder has a flat-fee pricing structure so that you will always know how much you have to pay and not have to worry about the numbers of subscribers you have.

Finally one common misconception is that autoresponders are only really useful for people who are working online, but this is simply not true.

More and more offline businesses and organizations are using autoresponders to communicate with their subscribers too. When it comes to efficiently sending email to groups of people then autoresponders are indispensable and really cost-effective communication tools.

What Is An Autoresponder And How Does It Work?

Don"t Fear Losing Subscribers When Moving Email Lists To A New Host

Top Email Tips from RocketResponder: It can be really daunting when it comes to moving email lists from one host company to another…but the fear is often much worse than the reality.

Generally it is not as simple as taking all of the contact details from one software provider and simply pressing a button to move them across to another.

In fact some email marketing software providers do not allow transfers of lists at all and, for those that do, there are normally certain hoops through which you must jump.

When it comes to moving lists then there is something which is generally true of most moves…you will tend to lose a percentage of your subscribers along the way.

This may sound like a disaster, especially to list-builders, but it need not be as bad as it might immediately sound.

Why Subscribers May Fall Away In A Move

If you are able to migrate one set of subscribers from one service provider to another then you generally will have to give them the option to come along with you.

Some will move over without any problem at all, others may want to move over but never get round to doing so and others still simply won’t want to move at all.

As strange as it may seem, some people just won’t want to take the trouble to move…even if the effort required is simply clicking a confirmation link in an email. It can just seem like too much effort and they won’t do it.

Those of you who use double opt-in subscriber lists will understand this only too well. There are always ‘ghost subscribers’ who take the initial step of signing up for your list but then never take the vital second step of clicking the confirmation link in the email to confirm their subscription.

I am not exactly why some people do this but they just do and it it can be a little frustrating.

So the bottom line is that when you are in a position where you want to move a set of subscribers from one email marketing provider to another, then you can expect your list size, initially at least, to decrease.

Why This Is Not Something To Worry About

Seeing your subscriber numbers go down when you are working your best to see them increase is not as bad as you might think.

For a start it is highly unlikely that everyone on your list reads all of your emails but it is more likely than not that some on your list will read none of your emails.

This can be for a variety of reasons but a common one is that, over time, people’s needs and interests change, so what may have appealed to them at one stage of their lives ma not appeal at all now.

There may be others who open the occasional email you send out, but only pay it very scant attention and are not really interested in what you have to say any more.

These are the very people who are most likely to drop off when you move your list and they just so happen to be the very group of people you can most afford to leave behind.

If someone loves what you have to say then they are most unlikely to leave you behind for the sake of clicking a single email link.

How You Can Mitigate Subscriber Losses

Explain to your subscribers why you are moving and set out exactly what you need them to do.

Explain that the move will be in order for you to provide them with a better service and give them plenty of notice of the move.

Maybe you could provide some sort of incentive for your existing subscribers to move with you such as a discount code, special offer or some other item that your subscribers would find useful, informative or helpful.

If you have not communicated with your list in some time then it may be helpful to re-introduce yourself and vow to do a better job of keeping them updated from now on.

Don’t be afraid to send out the link to move to your new list several times because we are all busy and very often emails are missed or forgotten.

Conclusion

So while your list may be smaller after the move, it will almost certainly contain your most responsive subscribers.

Take this opportunity to reconnect with your subscribers or to connect with them better than you did before.

At the same time you will still be building your list so it will continue to grow and you will soon make the numbers up once again.

Don"t Fear Losing Subscribers When Moving Email Lists To A New Host

Why Email Marketing Software Will Keep Your Blog Readers Coming Back For More

There are few things more frustrating for a blogger than to write some amazing new content but fail to get the views it deserves. On the other hand, being able to see lots of hits as soon as it is posted is just about the best feeling in the world.

The problem is that blog readers, even the most loyal readers, won’t keep returning on the off chance of finding new content. This is why something as important as blog readership can never be left to mere chance and bloggers must take the initiative to encourage their readers to keep coming back for more.

Obviously your content is well-written, relevant, up-to-date, informative and highly targeted to your particular niche, but that alone is not sufficient to maximize traffic to your blog.

Even if your blog theme looks great, the images are eye-catching and the entire blog is engaging and exciting, you could still be missing out on traffic to your new posts.

Using RSS Feeds (Rich Site Summary, but often also called Really Simple Syndication) has traditionally been one way of driving traffic to your blog and ensuring that your new content gets seen.

When a user subscribes to a site’s RSS feed, their browser does the regular checking for new content and sends out an alert when it finds some.

RSS is also not without its drawbacks – it has been rapidly declining in popularity over the last decade, has always been seen as rather nerdy and does nothing to help build up relationships between blogger and blog readers.

A Google Trends search for the term “RSS” shows the huge decrease in popularity for this search term since its height in 2005. Google searches for “RSS” have declined by around 90% in the past 10 years and are forecast to drop even further in the year ahead.

Thankfully there is a more mainstream, far less nerdy and really simple solution to help bloggers engage with their readers and send out alerts each time new content is posted.

The solution is email marketing software such as RocketResponder where, instead of getting alerts from an impersonal RSS Feed, blog subscribers receive an email directly from the blog owner informing them of new content. In addition, subscribers can reply to these emails, allowing the blogger to receive instant feedback, alerting them to problems or suggesting ways their blog could be improved.

Using email to automatically send new content alerts has another powerful advantage for the blogger as it allows clicks to links within the email to be tracked. Now bloggers who use targeted email lists to send new content alerts can easily see which content is most popular and which is not so attractive to their subscribers.

An email address list alert system actually does far more than just send out alerts. Bloggers can ask for feedback, build anticipation by providing information about upcoming blog posts and provide additional content which is exclusive to their blog subscribers.

RocketResponder has been specifically designed for use by bloggers to alert subscribers to their new content. See how easy it is to set up as an alert tool for new blog content:

RocketResponder Blog: How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog With RocketResponder

Why Email Marketing Software Will Keep Your Blog Readers Coming Back For More

Five Top Tips To Ensure You Write Better Emails

When you write an email for your subscribers are you clear about what you want to say?

Hopefully the answer to that question was ‘yes’ because that is half the battle won. If the answer was “no” or ‘sometimes” or ‘mostly” then please read this post before you write another email.

Unless you are clear about what you want to say each and every time you set out to say something then you really are wasting your time.

The second thing you need to ensure is that you are clear about how you actually present the message. By that I mean that the words you type onto your keyboard must accurately reflect the ideas you are trying to get across.

It is not good enough that you can read your email and say “It could be better but at least I know what I mean,” because this approach will have subscribers heading for the unsubscribe button in huge numbers.

So here are my five top tips to ensure that you write better emails and that every email you send actually says what you want it to say:

1. Have a plan – Work out what you want to say before you start writing. Unless you are totally clear about what you want to say then you stand no hope of explaining this to others in an email.


2. Build a structure – make a list of bullet points or brief notes for each of the points you want to make and spend some time putting them in a logical order. This will ensure that you don’t miss out anything important and that you don’t include information that is irrelevant and confusing.


3. Get writing – Now get to work on the email. Flesh our your points and check it over for grammar and other mistakes. If things don’t make sense then take time changing things around until it does make sense.


4. Read it aloud – Don’t even think about sending it yet. Read your email aloud because this will instantly highlight any problem areas. Words or phrases that you stumble over will need to be rewritten to make it easier to understand. It is often at this point that you might read a sentence and think “That’s not what I wanted to say at all,” and if this happens to you then go back and correct as necessary.


5. Get someone else to read it – This is the icing on the cake and will confirm whether or not you have got the other steps right. If someone else reads your copy and says they can perfectly understand what you have written, then you have done a good job and can hit ‘send’ with confidence. If they are confused then you need to work on the part(s) that are causing confusion.

In summary, before hitting the ‘send’ button when you write an email to your list you need to be clear about what you want to say and be clear about how you say it.

Five Top Tips To Ensure You Write Better Emails

Email Marketing Opt In Options Explained and Analyzed

When it comes to using email marketing software then there is always a choice to make over how you build your list.

There are generally two options – whether to use single or double opt in – and this relates to how your subscribers are added to your list.

Email marketing opt in options are basically very straightforward but they can also be surprisingly controversial.

Some people insist that one is better than the other and in fact RocketResponder is very much on the side of the double-opt in camp. (We will explain exactly why later.)

However let’s not get ahead of ourselves in this story of optin email marketing…let’s explain the difference between both methods first.

When you use email marketing software to communicate with your subscribers via email then you will need their permission to do so in order to avoid anti-spam regulations.

This makes sense because it is not really an totally ethical thing to send emails to people who don’t want to hear from you.

The permission is given when your subscribers voluntarily give you their email addresses and indicate that they want you to communicate with them via email.

Single optin email marketing means that as soon as a valid email address is added to your email marketing software then you can begin sending out emails right away.

There is no problem here if the email address owner is the person who signed up to join your list.

However the danger with this method is that it is open to abuse from malicious people who simply know the email addresses of other people and want to cause mischief.

So if Katie is upset with Jon she might sign him up to a whole host of email lists so that he is inundated with emails from lots of people he has no interest in communicating with.

In this case there is no permission but the owner of the email list will have no idea that this is the case.

This is the major flaw in single opt-in systems and is one of the reasons why RocketResponder does not recommend single opt in for users.

Double optin email marketing adds an extra layer of security to protect the owner of the email address.

In this situation the email address is not made “live” by the email marketing software until it is confirmed by the owner.

This works by automatically sending an confirmation email to the address which just joined the list and asking the owner to click a link to confirm that they really do want to receive emails.

Only once the confirmation has been granted will the address be unlocked to allow any further emails to be sent.

This extra layer of protection will mean that it takes longer to build lists because some people will sign up to receive emails but never go on to confirm their subscription.

At RocketResponder we do not see this as a problem – if the person is not even interested to confirm their interest then they are most unlikely not to want to hear from you anyway.

In addition the extra level of protection to subscribers offered by double optin email marketing is why we insist on this method for all our account holders.

 

 

Email Marketing Opt In Options Explained and Analyzed

When It Comes To Writing Email, Size Matters

It is still very common to go to a sales page for a product and find what marketers call a “long copy sales letter.”

The term is self-explanatory and if you have seen any of these pages yourself, you will know that long can mean very long indeed.

The reason that such pages have been so successful for internet marketers is that they work and quite often they can work very well.

However don’t make the mistake of thinking that this technique will translate quite so well into the email you send to your subscribers…the majority of times it really won’t.

For a start, if we are on some sales page for a product or service it is generally because we actually want to be there and want to read about the offer being made to us.

It follows that we may have time to read many thousands of words, or perhaps we will just read the headlines and bullet points and skip to the “buy it now button” as many people do.

Email is different. It is different because we can get so many of them on a daily basis. They just land in our inboxes at random times and invite us to read them.

We may be at our desks or or at home and have time to go through all our emails one by one but, increasingly, we read them on tablets or smartphones when lots of other things are competing for our precious time.

So when it comes to writing email, for example using an auto-responder like RocketResponder, the general rule is to keep it short. Email size matters and small is generally better than large.

Grab your subscriber’s attention with the subject line, then say what you need to say in a few sentences and include a link for people to click to get more information.

That is the general rule and there always exceptions. You might do an email newsletter for example which is packed full of content and that is totally fine.

However when we are competing for the precious time of our increasingly busy subscribers it really does help to keep the message short and to the point.

 

When It Comes To Writing Email, Size Matters

Use Video To Show The Real You

Using an autoresponder like RocketResponder is something every online business should do.

The old days where you stand behind the counter of a store and wait for the customers to come to you are long gone.

Nowadays you have to go out and take the lead when it comes to customer communication. The tables have turned and you now go out to the customers.

Even more and more businesses in the offline world are using auto-responders to connect with their customers and get them coming into their stores.

Email is a very effective means of communication, and if you have built up a good relationship with your client base, they will look forward to getting emails from you.

An effective use of an autoresponder campaign will see you spending as much, if not more, time on building relationships with customers as you do trying to sell them goods and services.

While email is a very effective means of doing that – don’t leave it to the written word alone…start using the power of video.

Video is an absolutely awesome way of building relationships and getting your subscribers and customers to know the real “you,” and, believe me, they will want to know you.

Don’t be scared of video and don’t think of big, expensive, professional, scripted productions either.

These days a video can be something shot on your smartphone, quickly uploaded to YouTube and available to be viewed by your customers in minutes.

You can do videos giving tips about using your products or services, talking about the latest trends in your industry or…just about anything at all.

Just be yourself and provide something of value and your customers will love you.

Post the link in a RocketResponder email, post it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog or your website…there are so many possibilities these days.

Use email but use video too…it is a really great combination.

Use Video To Show The Real You

Five Tips To Make Your Next Autoresponder Campaign Sparkle

When you use an autoresponder service like RocketResponder you open up a whole new world of communication with your subscribers.

You have a powerful tool to ensure that your message, or series of messages go out exactly when you want them to and over the time period you want them to go out.

This leaves you free to concentrate on the message and to ensure that the information you are communicating is spot on.

Here are five top RocketResponder tips to ensure that your next autoresponder campaign (and every other autoresponder campaign after that) works out exactly as you want it to.

1. Always plan in advance. This is a must. Take the time to work out what message you want to get across and what you are going to say. There should be a structure to every email campaign you put together whether it is a series of training steps, the build up to a launch or the ‘drip feed’ of information over a set period of time.


2. How long will it last? There must be a definite start date and a definite end date for your campaign. Make sure you leave yourself long enough to plan the email campaign in advance so it is all ready to go and you are not leaving things until the last minute.


3. What am I trying to achieve? The campaign must have some specific goal otherwise you will not be able to tell whether or not it has been a success. Work out what the goal is and how best you are going to achieve it.


4. How frequently will I send emails? If it is a short campaign then it might be appropriate to send an email every day but if it is a bit longer then maybe one every other day or every three days might work better. Finally if you have not contacted your list for a long time and you plan to send them regular emails during this campaign then it might be worth warning them in advance that they are going to hear from you again.


5. Make sure everything works. When everything is all queued up and ready to go then make sure everything works as you want it to. Send each of the emails to yourself first and read over them for any factual mistakes or grammatical errors. Also test that all your links work as you want them to and that any pages you send people to are the correct pages and the links or sales buttons on those pages are also properly set up.

Try putting these tips to work and see how well RocketResponder can work for you.

Five Tips To Make Your Next Autoresponder Campaign Sparkle

Why Quality Matters When It Comes To New Subscribers

Quality matters when it comes to listbuilding and at RocketResponder we strongly believe this to be true.

We don’t believe in the rather outdated concept that says you just pile as many people onto your list as you possibly can in the hope that if you send them enough marketing emails that some will eventually bite.

Not only is it not very clever marketing, but neither is it very effective and you will just end up unnecessarily annoying a lot of people for no good reason.

To everyone who enters the world of listbuilding there is a question which always must be answered…should I go for single or double opt in when it comes to getting subscribers.

Single opt in is where someone enters an email address and as soon as that happens the email address is automatically added to your list.

Double opt in is where someone enters an email address and it is only added to your list when the owner of that address clicks a link in an email to confirm that they actually want to be on your list.

The first, without doubt, will allow you to build your list faster than the second which is slower, but which, arguably, will give you a much higher quality list.

Think of it like this. It is so easy to get hold of someone’s email address and sign that person up to a list – with single opt in the owner of that email address is on your list whether or not they wanted to be on it in the first place.

With single opt in, you as a list owner, have no way of knowing whether anyone at all on your list actually wanted to be on it.

Even if someone did sign up for your list with a single opt in process, it is difficult to determine how interested they are in what you are promoting. The person who really wants to hear from you cannot be differentiated from the person who signed up to your list by mistake.

With double opt in you are asking people to actually take some positive action to say “Yes I really do want to be on this list and receive email communication from the person who owns it.”

I can guarantee that with double opt in you will regularly get people who sign up for the list but then never get around to clicking on the email to confirm their interest.

This can be really frustrating but it need not be. Look at is this way – if the person cannot even be bothered to confirm their interest then they probably have little or on interest in anything you have to say or any goods or services you might want them to buy.

At RocketResponder our message is simple – there is nothing to fear from double opt-in and by getting people to take one extra step to join your list means you are building a higher quality list.

The higher quality should translate into more engagement and higher conversions and that, after all, is what listbuilding is all about.

 

Why Quality Matters When It Comes To New Subscribers

When It Comes To Lists Size v Quality Must Always Be Considered

When it comes to building a list, then the size of that list is obviously going to be important, however size is not everything and that is what a lot of new listbuilders fail to understand.

Let’s say you bought a list of 5,000 people – random people you have never heard of and who may (or may not) have any interest in your product. (Buying a list in this way is a really, really bad idea and we would strongly discourage anyone from doing so.)

Now let’s say you had built up a list of 500 people, perhaps from making them an offer via a squeeze page or from getting in front of an audience in an online live streaming event or via your blog.

The second list will be an order of magnitude smaller than the first but it will be much more valuable to you than the larger list. This is because it is not just a numbers game, it is a game of numbers combined with quality.

A high quality small list will always trump a low quality large one because you will be looking to build up a relationship with the people on your list and this is key.

How can you possibly hope to build up a relationship with people who have no idea who you are and have no idea how they came to be on your list in the first place? The simple answer is you can’t.

This is one of the reasons that buying a list is such a bad idea, because you have no way of knowing that the people on it have given their permission to receive emails from you. Maybe there people out there who are happy just to be emailed at random but I know I am not and I don’t know anyone who actually does fall into that category.

So always have list size v quality in mind when you set about building a list. Numbers for the mere sake of numbers is never a good idea.

At RocketResponder we want to ensure that your listbuilding efforts are effective and that you have all the right tools to both build a list and communicate with your list as effectively as possible.

If you concentrate on building a high quality list then it will take you longer to grow that list but once you understand that simply going for high numbers is not the best approach then taking time to grow a list is no longer a problem.

When It Comes To Lists Size v Quality Must Always Be Considered

Seven Top Tips To Help Ensure Your Emails Avoid Spam Filter

When we write an email we want it to get seen. We want people to see it, open it, read it and take action on it if appropriate.

The very last place we want our words of wisdom to go is into someone’s spam or junk folder but sadly this happens from time to time because spam filters can sometimes catch some good emails as they try and filter out the bad.

Here at RocketResponder we want to ensure your emails get seen by the people who signed up to your list so here are our seven top tips to ensure that you avoid spam filter and ensure your message gets across to the people on our list:

1. Stop using aster*sks in your emails. The only possible reason you might have to use asterisks in your emails is to try and trick the spam filters. Just write your content for the people you are aiming for and don’t try to beat the system. Normal people never spell ‘free’ as ‘fr*e’ – I know this, you know this and the people who came up with the spam filters know this. Spam filters flag your email harshly if there are asterisks within words. Saying ‘fr*e’ is far worse than saying ‘free.


2. Understand email has changed. All the major providers understand that most emails come from the top 10 providers. They don’t base delivery on the provider. They now base delivery on the individual sender. This is why some emails will go to the inbox and others to spam when the email is sent on the same provider. So the major thing to take back from this is you need to have a good personal reputation.


3. Don’t send from a yahoo address. Yahoo made a change to their email policies which tells every receiver that if Yahoo didn’t send it to mark it as spam. For best results you should use your own email address on your own domain. So far Gmail isn’t bad, but they could make the change too. Nothing beats your own email address from your own domain.


4. Encourage people to interact with your emails. If users don’t open your emails, email providers know it and you are more likely to have your emails flagged as spam. Ideally you want to write content that ensures that people are opening your emails and clicking on links. If you can actually encourage people to reply to your emails then that is even better again – replying to emails is a sure sign that the emails are not unwanted spam.


5. Always use a valid email address. This may seem obvious to most but many people still send email from fake email addresses such as noreply@mysite.com. Guess what, when receivers get your email they check if the email address is real before accepting it. Use a fake email and you might not even make it to the spam bin, as it is quite likely that it will just be deleted on the spot.


6. Be original in your content. Don’t copy and paste emails. The number of people following some old school ebooks or PLR email series is crazy. The problem is email providers are smart. They know that same copy was used before and wasn’t wanted. So when you send it, they’ll know it wasn’t wanted again. Always create value and original high quality content is king. And finally…


7. Stop telling people you are not a spammer.  Many spammers use this ‘trick’ in the hope that they get past the spam filters or convince recipients that they are not spammers. So even if you are not sending spam, the mere fact that you even mention it means you are in danger of being classed as spam. The bottom line is that if you talk like a spammer, you’ll get filtered like a spammer. If you have to convince someone it’s not spam, you’re not sending emails people want. Stop and rethink your email strategy before sending any more.

We hope those tips will be useful to you. Here at RocketResponder we are passionate about getting your message out to the people who want to hear it. We make sending emails and communicating with the people on your list simple and efficient. Use these tips and your messages will be seen time and time again.

Seven Top Tips To Help Ensure Your Emails Avoid Spam Filter

Email subject lines - final selection for now

Here is the final look at email subject lines for the year – I thought I would give you a break next month with the holidays coming up.

I hope you have enjoyed this series and that your own RocketResponder emails have had improved open rates because you have been taking care with your own subject lines.

So here are the final six for now at least:

• WOW! This is HOT HOT HOT Right NOW! – Ok well maybe it is “hot hot hot” but it seems like you are trying too hard to convince me. Result: Very offputting and I will move on. Unopened and deleted.


• Mega Stoon – What is it with two word subject lines which make absolutely no sense at all? Stop doing it. This is driving me crazy. Deleted for the sake of my sanity.


• sanity – Seriously the very next email which caught my eye had the subject line “sanity” and nothing else. These people are testing my patience.


• Use this & get new leads instantly! – At last an email I want to open. Notice how I am not told what “this” is. The idea is that I have to open the email to find out. An excellent subject line. I knew there was one out there this month.


• Alphabet Soup: IPAS & PBAs – I am totally lost already. If the subject line is this confusing then I am highly unlikely to want to find out what the body of the email has in store. Not opened.


• Patrick Want to do us both a Favor? – Who doesn’t want to do a favor for someone? And who doesn’t like having a favor done for them? So this is an email I would certainly open. As an aside it came from the same person who sent the Alphabet Soup email, so for any given person some subject lines work and others don’t.

Let me know some of your favorite and least favorite subject lines and also let me know what you have thought of this series…and whether you would like to see some more of the same.

Email subject lines - final selection for now

Email subject lines - the examples keep coming

We continue our RocketResponder series on email subject lines with six more examples.

I was asked the other day if these examples are real or whether I have just made them up.

Well I can assure you that every single one of them is 100 per cent genuine.

So here is this month’s selection:

• Ganhe dinheiro visitando essa pagina – Well as I don’t speak Portuguese I would give this one a miss.


• Before you join a site you intend to join anyway do it through us… – The problem here is that I don’t know who “us” is and I am not given any real incentive as to why I might want to join a site through the people who sent the email. This just fails to grab me or capture my attention enough to open the email.


• stuck at start? – This is good. Anyone who feels that they are stuck at the beginning and have no clue what to do next would probably at least consider opening this email. Nicely done.


• Youve Found Gold $1000-$8000 Commissions: FREE Report – This might be true or it might not be. In any event I don’t believe it so I won’t be clicking on the link. Yes I do make snap decisions when reading a subject line…and so do you.


• Auto responders – What does that mean? You might as well say “Dog food,” Green paper,” or “Dirty shoes.” Come on you can do better than that!


• MULTY ONE – Yes that was the subject line. It makes Auto responders sound almost interesting. The point of a subject line is to get the email opened and not to confuse the poor reader.

We will be back next month with some more.

Email subject lines - the examples keep coming

Email subject lines - the examples keep on coming

Thanks to everyone who has said that they enjoy this series of email subject lines blog posts.

We enjoy putting together and we want all RocketResponder users to get the very best possible results out of the service we provide.

Here are six examples of other people’s subject lines to have a look at:

• Find the Hidden Promo Codes! Then Tell Others! – No! If I find them I am keeping them to myself. It does sound like too much hard work but if I had a bit of time on my hands I might have opened this email. A bit unsure of this one really. This is one of those subject lines where I want to hear your views.


• *LAUNCH*- HAPPENING NOW** Earn 75% Comm. PAID DAILY – What purpose the four asterisks actually serve is beyond me. And is it only me but does 75 per cent commission put any one else off? I just think that if a program owner has to give away so much of his income then something does not seem quite right. Not a chance of me ever clicking this email. Deleted.


• RE-LAUNCH! Cash JackPot Points! 2 Level Commissions Now @VLD! – I don’t have the faintest idea what this is about and I am not going to waste any time trying to find out. Terrible subject line.


• Patrick Join Us for Wonderful Wednesday Webinars – This just works. Wonderful Wednesday Webinars is the phrase which makes me open up the email. A winner.


• Ahhh F**K THIS! – This is, without doubt, the worst subject line I have ever read. It was so bad that I replied to the guy who sent it and told him never to contact me again. There is just no excuse for this kind of language. No matter how good your offer is or how ideally suited it is for me, if you put this kind of email in my inbox I will never want to do business with you.


• SafeList With a Twist – and a Cycler! – This was winning for me until the part about the cycler. SafeList With a Twist is all that was needed to capture my attention enough to open the email. Know to quit when you are ahead. Sometimes less really is more.

Meet back here same time next month for another look at this fascinating subject (if you excuse the terrible pun that is.)

Email subject lines - the examples keep on coming

Email subject lines - the real life examples continue

How are your RocketResponder emails coming along?

If you have been following this series you should really be thinking about your subject lines now.

How many of these people put enough thought into their own subject lines do you think?

• What can we do for you? – I like this as it puts the recipient of the email right at the heart of the message. It got the email opened and once inside the sender wasted no time in explaining what his program could do. I would only have changed it to read “Look what we can do for you…” just to avoid someone answering the question with the answer “nothing” and clicking delete. My change avoids the negative altogether and turns the subject line into a call to action which has the subtext – “Open this email to find out what we can do for you.” Good subject line. Liked it a lot.


• Patrick Here is an Extremely Simple Business Model that WORKS! – Love the message, hate the grammar. The mixture of capital letters and lower case letters is off putting and the random all capital word at the end is even more so. This detracts from what is actually a very powerful marketing message. I will forgive the grammar errors and open it any way. Works for me.


• LibertaGia – If your subject line looks like a spelling mistake I won’t open the email. Deleted already.


• ListJumper == High CTR! – I know what ListJumper is and I know what CTR stands for. However take a step back when you write a subject line. If I didn’t already know these terms then this would mean nothing to me at all. As for the two equals signs in the middle I have no idea what that is all about. Not a great subject line by any means but I have seen worse. I wouldn’t be tempted to use it.


• WARNING .. highly addictive! – That is all it would take to get me to open this email. Remember all you want to do is build up enough curiosity to get the email opened. In this case three words is all that is needed. Best of the month.


• Let Me Show You The Way – Yes, this works too. Hooked in six words this time. The internet can be a daunting, scary place, especially for the new and inexperienced. Why would you not want someone to show you the way? Opened.

I am off on the look out for some more now, see you back here in a month.

Email subject lines - the real life examples continue

Email subject lines - still more real life examples

Mastering email subject lines: It is the last Friday of the month which means it must be time for some more RocketResponder subject lines.

Here is another selection of genuine subject lines that people have thought fit to grace their emails.

As usual some work better than others:

• I had to read this twice… – This is a sure fire winner for me. You could use this about virtually anything and have a good chance of getting your message opened. Hints of something exciting, different, extraordinary…it has got me hooked.


• __________How_to_Make_50K_Monthly______No_Monthly_Fees____Pays_Weekly__ – Yes this is honestly how the subject line was written. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it before. What a mess. And, before you ask, no I didn’t open it.


• Patrick LUCK / KARMA do you BELIEVE? L@@K – If your subject line looks like it was written with a random word generator then I will give it a miss. Unopened. Dreadfully bad.


• Clixsense – Is that all you are giving me? I am all in favor of keeping things short but give me a bit better than that. What about this instead: “Want Cents. Make Cents. Clixsense.”


• No More Joining No Moere False Promises! – And no more spell checker by the looks of things either. Apart from the spelling mistake which should have been corrected, this is not a bad subject line. Anyone who has been online for any length of time will know that “false promises” are all too common. This writer knows their audience. Yes I would open this.


• Got a Minute? – No I am far too busy, go away. I think most of us could spare a minute or so if someone asked us nicely. Short. Catchy. Clever. It works for me. Best of the month (however the standard is particularly low this month.)

Let’s meet back at the same place in a month for some more.

Email subject lines - still more real life examples

Email subject lines - more real life examples

mastering email subject lines: The RocketResponder email subject line series keeps on coming…it is hard to believe that another month has passed already.

Just where has this year gone? Hopefully your email marketing campaign is working well for you but there is always room to improve.

See what you think of these half dozen subject lines which were randomly culled from our inbox:

• Buy 1 year of hosting get the 2nd year FREE! – This is from the ‘tell it like it is’ school of subject line writing. You know exactly what you will get when you open this email. If you don’t need a hosting deal right now then there is no need for you to look at the email at all but if you do then you might be very tempted to take a look inside. Don’t be afraid to try out this approach from time to time.


• INVITATION to EARN thousands of DOLLARS ! – Since when does anyone need an invitation to earn money? Also the random capital letters and the unnecessary apostrophe make the entire message sound a touch desperate. I would pass this one by. It fails to excite me at all. #Fail


• We Just Went Viral!!! We Took The Only Top Spot In The World – Really? How very nice for you but what has this got to do with me and why should I even care? Let me put it another way. I don’t care about you, I care about me, so make the subject line about me next time. I wouldn’t have opened this email.


• Hurry ! Scurry ! best EVA positioning NOW – This started off really well and then they only had to go and spoil everything. I don’t know what EVA positioning is and I don’t have time to find out either. This one can pass me by. I think this opening would have been so much better if it said: “Hurry! Scurry! Never Have to Worry!” instead.


• ~~fname~Well Save You From the Sharks! – Oops someone didn’t use the test email function before pressing send. So you got the personalization wrong; I assume you mean “We’ll
  
  Save You…” and not “Well Save You…” which makes no sense. Also if you are going to use every word in capitals then the lower case “the” stands out for all the wrong reasons. Finally an unnecessary apostrophe just to make this subject line disaster complete. 0/10 Dismal.


• V TEN Leverages Traffic of TEs Mailers Blogs & Popular Sites – It very well may do but this subject line sends me to sleep. I would enter it in the “worst subject line of the year” awards but that’s about it. Another poor effort but still miles ahead of the previous entry.

Let’s meet back here in a month’s time and do it all over again.

Email subject lines - more real life examples

How Colors Trigger Emotions - Infographic

 

You are online and you want to do your best to get the right message across to your visitors to your site and to your customers. Why else would you be here reading how colors trigger emotions right?

You may communicate with your subscribers via email using an autoresponder like RocketResponder.

You may also take great care over the words you use, the products or services you offer and the way your website is laid out.

But how much attention to you pay to color?

Colors are one of the first things we notice and they affect our subconscious and therefore our decision-making process way before we actively consider making a purchase.

Colors are strongly associated with moods and emotions and can make the difference between whether someone buys from you or whether they don’t.

For a fascinating insight into one way color can affect emotion and how big businesses use this to their advantage, check out this infographic below:

Explore more visuals like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

How Colors Trigger Emotions - Infographic

Email subject lines - real life examples

Mastering email subject lines: Hopefully by now you are getting good with your RocketResponder subject lines.

Have a look at this latest selection and see whether you agree with our assessment or not:

• No Cost Leads – [Video] – Wow, someone really pushed the boat out with this one. So if I open this email I will have to watch a sales video of some sort. The only question on my mind is how much will these “no cost leads” really cost me. Totally off putting so I won’t be opening this one.


• Welcome to the Most Advanced Mailing System on This Planet! – I have been using traffic exchanges for long enough to know exactly what program this refers to. I would bet that this is copied and pasted from the “affiliate resource” section of the membership site in question. It is a good subject line but it is often a good idea to use something unique rather than a subject line which is shared with the entire membership. On the other hand if a subject line is good enough to get the job done then there is no harm in giving it a go. I like this subject line.


• This Little Ebay Selling Trick Blew My Mind… – I love this, absolutely love it because if you are the least but curious you will want to know: “What trick is this, tell me more. You must tell me more now.”
  
  Note that this could work with a variety of different subjects because it follows this formula: “This Little [insert subject here] Trick Blew My Mind…” So you could say somerthing like “This Little RocketResponder Tip Blew My Mind…” or “This Little ListNerds Secret Strategy Blew My Mind…”


• Patrick Joe Freyaldenhoven reveals the secret of his success – Maybe I am missing something here but who is Joe Freyaldenhoven? Also personalizing the message is confusing here unless the guy who is revealing his secrets is actually called Patrick Joe Freyaldenhoven. I would prefer something like: “I Am Ultra Successful: This Is My Secret…”


• A Must Have Tool for ANY Affiliate! – Seven short words and every one a winner. Would I open this? Of course I would. I really want to know what this email is promoting. #Winning.


• No Recruiting No Cost No Kidding – The repeated use of the word “No” gets a big “Yes” from me. It is catchy and has me asking what it is all about so I want to open the email and find out more. You can also use this for yourself. Just add your own subjects. No [x] No [y] No [z]

Don’t forget there will be another selection next month.

Email subject lines - real life examples

Positive Word Of Mouth Will Win You More Customers

 

We have written quite extensively about the need to use social media to promote your brand and your business. Nothing beats a positive word of mouth about your business, it’s free and it’s powerful.

Developing a following on social media sites is more important for business than ever.

You can use RocketResponder to remind people of your social links each time you send them an email and encourage your customers to follow you on social sites.

The more people that follow you then the more people that will see the messages you send out about your business.

You will almost certainly use social media to inform customers and potential customers when you have written a new blog post, uploaded a new video or have a new promotion or product coming out.

But, just like communicating by email, this need not be a one way street when it comes to getting your message across.

You should actively encourage your customers to use social media and share their experiences of you and your business with their followers.

These days social proof is vital for many and they want to know that someone else has had a good experience with the goods or services they are interested in before they make the commitment to buy.

Think about how you can encourage your customers to spread the word about you. Maybe you could encourage them to use Twitter with a particular hashtag and give a small gift each month for a random customer who has used that hashtag.

Or you could just ask your customers to post their comments on social media sites if they particularly like your products. Sometimes just asking is all that it takes to get them to do this for you.

Remember that people are nine times more likely to leave a negative comment about you than to leave a positive comment so anything you can do to help even things up a bit is fair game.

Positive Word Of Mouth Will Win You More Customers

One Last Opportunity To Make Unhappy Customers Raving Fans

Despite all your best efforts every now and again you will have to deal with customer complaints. It takes some effort to make unhappy customers raving fans.

Even if you do an outstanding job it is just impossible to please everybody all the time.

The worst kind of unhappy customer are the ones who just stop using your goods and services because they are dissatisfied and yet they never tell you why.

They are unhappy, they may tell all their friends that they are unhappy and yet they don’t even give you the opportunity to put things right.

Last time we spoke about how it was the expectations of your customer – how they perceive in their own minds the value of your goods or services to be – which will determine whether they will go on to buy from you again or not.

Sometimes you are given a golden opportunity to convert a customer from unsatisfied to highly satisfied when they complain about their purchase.

Maybe they reply to your RocketResponder email (always check your business email account regularly for communication from customers) or reach out to you via social media.

If you are going to stand any chance of converting them into happy customers then you must do the following:

• Deal with their complaint promptly


• Immediately you receive the complaint contact them back to let them know the matter has your personal and urgent attention


• If you need more information to deal with the matter then ask for it.


• If the customer is being angry or abusive resist the temptation to respond in a like manner, remain professional at all times.


• If you made a mistake admit it and put things right – offer a refund, replacement, compensation or whatever you think is appropriate in the circumstances.


• Above all leave the customer in no doubt that you are taking their complaint seriously.

Do this and there is a good chance that a dissatisfied customer has been transformed into a loyal fan because their expectations have now been exceeded.

This can especially be the case if their initial reaction was abusive and/or completely over the top, which can often happen when people are angry.

Remember a service like RocketResponder is not only to provide a one way flow of traffic from you to the customer. Use it for efficient two way dialogue and you can get even better results.

Customers may respond directly to emails you send out and don’t forget that you can, and should, ask questions of your customers to find out how they perceive you and your business and to gain insight about how you could do things better.

One Last Opportunity To Make Unhappy Customers Raving Fans

Influencing Perceived Value Of Your Customers - Exceeding Expectation

 

Last time we explained that it was important to give your customers value but that the customer’s perception of value is key to making them feel good about the purchase. Today we are discussing the influencing perceived value of your customers.

This leads to the rather paradoxical conclusion that your customers can feel really happy about an inferior product and really unhappy about a superior one.

Thankfully it is not totally hit and miss and you can really go a long way to influencing this perception of value.

The trick is to understand that your customer will have some expected value for the performance they want your products or services to live up to.

If, when they examine and use the goods they have paid for, the performance is better than their expectations then they will be satisfied and the perceived value will be high.

If, on the other hand, the product falls short of their expectations for it, then the perceived value will be low and they are unlikely to buy from you again.

This is why you will see that a lot of companies put huge emphasis on the notion of exceeding customer expectation because this is the performance standard which will almost guarantee happy, loyal and repeat custom.

Think of it like this, there are three things you can do in this regard:

• fail to meet expectation – the customer will be unhappy, disappointed, maybe even angry with you and will not want to buy again. They may even demand a refund and fire off an angry email or letter to you.


• meet expectation – you have delivered exactly what the customer wanted. They expected “x” and they got exactly that. You have not really triggered any deep emotions here and so you have not won any really loyal fans. Your product will be easily forgotten.


• exceed expectations – You have gone over and above what the customer thought they would get. If they thought they were already getting something of good value, now they think they have got something of extra-ordinary value. You have won raving fans who are likely to encourage their friends and family to buy from you too.

Try and look at the goods and services you offer from the point of view of your customers. Do you think you meet, fail to meet or exceed their expectations and could you do anything differently to do even better.

One thing you could do is use your RocketResponder broadcast message function to ask your customers to tell you how you are doing…the feedback could prove invaluable.

Influencing Perceived Value Of Your Customers - Exceeding Expectation

Why Email Marketing Services Will Give Your Membership Site A Boost

Email Marketing Top Tips. Did you know that email marketing services (something called mass mailing or mass emailing services) can really give your membership sites a massive boost?

In fact using mass mailing – always with permission to do so – is a really very powerful way to get so much more out of a membership site.

When we are talking about a membership site here, we mean any type of website where people typically pay to gain access to all or part of the site. There are also membership sites where people can join for free and others where there is no free element and all members are paid members.

Regardless of the exact type of site in question, they all have one thing in common and that is that using email marketing services – such as an autoresponder like RocketResponder – can dramatically boost activity.

Most people understand that sending out email newsletters to subscribers is powerful but not everyone takes the time to do so. There may be a feeling that it is too complicated, or to much like hard work or just too time consuming to set up and manage.

RocketResponder was set up to remove all these obstacles so that sending out a newsletter was just about as simple as sending an email to your friends. Now, if you own or manage any type of membership site,  there is no excuse any more not to use the power of email to get more traffic and activity for very little effort indeed.

Convert free members into paid members

Do you have a mixture of free and paid members? Then use the followup email feature to encourage your paid members to convert into paid members.

The followup series – typically delivered over a few days or weeks – will point out all the advantages of moving over to the paid option and this can be amazingly effective at doing so without the need for any ‘hard sell’ at all.

People generally hate missing out on things…it is just human nature. So why not remind them that while their free membership is good, there is so much more that they are missing out on by not taking advantage of your paid membership level or levels.

Another cool thing is that the RocketResponder API will automatically unsubscribe them from the free list the moment they upgrade.

This means that they won’t get any more ‘upgrade now’ type messages and instead can get more targeted emails to suit their needs, such as tips on how to get the most our of the paid memership features they have signed up for.

Remember that this can be used in any kind of membership site, especially when there is a free trial or a free tier involved.

Finally everyone on your email list will have given you permission to contact them, and confirmed their email address, so that this form of mass mailing (mass emailing) is certainly not spam.

We very strongly believe that nobody should get emailed from a business without permission and as long as email marketers follow that rule then they should not go far wrong.

Why Email Marketing Services Will Give Your Membership Site A Boost

Why The Feelgood Factor Is Absolutely Critical

 

The chances are that in business you will want to keep your customers happy.

After all happy customers are good because they:

• don’t complain about you


• don’t cause any problems


• buy more from you and


• encourage their friends to buy from you

One of the reasons you use a service like RocketResponder to communicate with your customers is to help ensure they feel valued by you.

You want to keep them happy and one way of doing that is in the communications you have with them via email.

It makes sense that another way you keep them happy is by ensuring that the goods or services you provide are of real value to them and constantly exceed their expectations.

The concept of value here is a very interesting one. Consider the following question:

What is more important, the actual value provided by the goods ore services you offer or the perceived value that the customer has of it?”

If you think it is the absolute, actual value then studies have shown that you are wrong.

Your customers will be more influenced by the value that they perceive their purchase to have – irrespective of its actual value to them.

This means:

• your customers will be satisfied if the perceived value is better than the actual value


• your customers will not be happy – and thus unlikely to make further purchases from you – if the actual performance of what they bought is quite good but they perceive it to be bad.

Basically they want to feel good about the purchase and feel good that the purchase is right for them and for their lives.

Think about what you offer and think how you consider your customers would perceive the value to be.

Next time we will look at what influences this perceived value.

Why The Feelgood Factor Is Absolutely Critical

The Danger of Discounting Prices Too Often

You will already know about the importance of communicating with your subscribers and customers. Now we discuss the danger of discounting prices too often.

RocketResponder is a tool which allows you to ensure that important messages are always sent out regularly and on time.

This post deals with another important message which you may be inadvertently sending out if you are in a position where you set your own prices.

Obviously if you are an affiliate marketer then you don’t control the price but this information is still important to you if you offer bonuses or other extras to tempt in customers to buy from you.

Your customer will tend to have a price in their head which they consider a “fair price” for whatever it is they are buying.

This applies to everything from a can of soft drink to a new car or a luxury holiday.

If you sell goods which are at or below the “fair price” level then it is far more likely that someone will buy from you than a higher priced competitor.

Often marketers will try to give themselves an edge over their competition by lowering their prices – maybe for a holiday-themed special offer, a special sale or some other reason to discount on the normal higher price.

Similarly affiliate marketers will often include an exclusive package of bonuses to customers who buy the goods or services being promoted through their affiliate link. Bonuses could include a cash-back payment, free bonus products, free reports or free training on how to use the item being purchased.

As one off tactics – such as during an initial product launch or over a Black Friday weekend – these can be very lucrative indeed.

The danger comes if, in order to continue gaining a competitive advantage, you offer the discounted deal over and over again.

Now the discounted deal or the deal with all the added bonuses is so generally expected that this becomes the new “fair price” in the buyer’s mind.

So if you try to raise it to the old “normal” price again your customers will be less likely to buy from you and will tend to wait until you offer the discount again.

The lesson is that it is always a good marketing tactic to offer discounts – especially seasonal discounts – but don’t discount so often that the lower prices become regarded as normal in the mind of the consumer.

 

 

The Danger of Discounting Prices Too Often

Branding Is More Important Now Than Ever It Was

Email communication tips: In the last post we discussed how branding has been compared to a religious experience for many.

Today I heard a new way of describing branding…and it certainly helps demonstrate how important it is in today’s marketplace.

Marketing expert Liz Papagni said this:

“Marketing without branding is like fishing without a hook.”

Think about that for a moment.

What Liz is saying here is that without branding, then marketing is futile.

Maybe her message is a little extreme because marketing will certainly get your message out to people but it is a laborious process which needs to repeated well..for ever or for as long as you want to remain in business.

But branding is the opposite. Branding is a tool which will pull customers in to you. Use marketing to push your message out there and use branding to pull customers in to you.

Liz goes on to say in her post:

“In an ideal world, a solid brand should precede your marketing. However, that’s not to say it’s ever too late to begin developing a branding plan for the future. No matter when you start, it’s sure to offer immense benefit to your marketing program and outcomes.”

Branding, done properly will also help you to better communicate with your customers and RocketResponder is one of the best tools you could use to ensure your email communication is done effortlessly and efficiently.

If you have never really thought about branding before then check out Liz’s post as it sets out some very important points about why branding is such a powerful too.

After all you wouldn’t go fishing without a hook on the end of the line.

 

Branding Is More Important Now Than Ever It Was

Use Branding To Gain Passionate and Loyal Customers

If you have had any dealings with the owners and staff of RocketResponder, you will know one thing…use branding to gain passionate and loyal customers.

The passion comes from wanting to design new products which are useful, simple to use and which make the lives of their customers easier or more profitable.

It makes sense that if you own a business that you should be passionate about it…if you are not then it will be a constant struggle to make that business work.

So let’s look at things from a different perspective.

How passionate are your customers about your business? Because it also must surely follow that if your customers are not really passionate about what you do then it will also be a constant struggle to make your business work.

Research has shown that one of the best ways to get passionate customers is to build a strong brand. In fact if you can do this right then you will build a powerful army of evangelistic customers who will want to go out and spread the word about how good your brand is.

I use the word “evangelistic” on purpose because I recently read one branding expert refer to brand loyalty as being a “religious experience” for many people these days.

So pay attention to branding. Maybe you should build your brand around you because that will be one constant in your business?

Maybe you could build it around something else entirely – after all it might not be so helpful to build a brand around you if your ultimate goal is to sell the business on to someone else sometime down the line.

The main message here is to think about branding if you have not already done so.

Do some research of your own if you feel you are weak in this area…it will certainly be time well spent.

 

Use Branding To Gain Passionate and Loyal Customers

Why "W" Is Your Best Friend

Marketing email writing tips: Sometimes when you have written an email for your RocketResponder subscribers, you may have a nagging feeling that you have left something out.

I know I have done this and I know many other people who have done the same.

It can happen when really important information gets left off such as the links you want your subscribers to click or the date or time that a particular event is taking place.

In these situations having some sort of template or guide can prove very useful and answering the five “W” questions may be a good place to start.

The questions are:

• Who? – Who will benefit from this email? Who are you looking to target?


• What? – What are the main points you want to get across? Make sure you cover tham all. What action would you like your subscribers to take after they have read your email.


• Where? – Where is the action taking place? Is there a physical venue you need to mention or a specific URL you want to direct people to?


• When? – Is the material time sensitive or is there a deadline or a specific date you must mention in the email?


• Why? – Why are you writing this now? Why is your offer so good right now or why should your subscriber take the action you want them to take?

Obviously you don’t have to stick to this formula or always cover all the points mentioned but remembering the five “W” questions can act as a good starting point to ensure that the main points get covered each and every time.

Why "W" Is Your Best Friend

Making Those 15 Seconds Count

I have previously estimated that when faced with a lot of emails to read, I would spend no more than ten seconds on each one. Making those 15 seconds count can be the difference between your business failing or succeeding.

It would seem that I am a little less patient than the average email reader as it would appear that around 15 seconds is the average time people will spend reading a marketing email.

Given that an average person will read at around 200 words per minute this means that you might have around 50 words to impress them.

From more than 30 years spent reading written letters, faxes and emails in busy newsrooms this really seems to ring true with me.

So the bottom line is this – each time you send out an email you have to impress your audience really early on.

Don’t spent five or six sentences building up to the main event or the reader will never even make it past all the fluff and filler you so needlessly added.

• Grab the reader’s attention with the headline


• Keep them captivated with the introduction


• Retain their attention with a well-written, clear and focused email which is targeted to their needs and


• tell them what action you expect them to take next.

Finally if you send out email newsletters you should fare a little better…it seems that people are generally prepared to spend an average of 51 seconds reading newsletters.

 

 

Making Those 15 Seconds Count

Always Ask For Permission...And Then Ask Again

Email marketing techniques: A week ago we discussed the issue of spam emails and asked the question “What was spam?”

The key element was that it was an email sent out to those people who did give you their permission to send them emails in the first place.

An example I gave was receiving permission for sending blog updates to your subscribers but then bombarding them with marketing emails instead.

Here is what I would suggest in such a situation.

• Firstly never bombard anyone with marketing emails. This overkill approach is nothing short of email bullying and should be avoided at all costs.


• When someone signs up for any of your lists (remember you can have lots of different lists with RocketResponder) ensure that you are always upfront and honest with them about what they are signing up to.


• The best way to avoid misunderstandings is to make clear exactly what sort of email communications they will receive in the “welcome email” you send to all new subscribers.


• In this email really draw attention to the fact that people can unsubscribe from your list at any time – including right now. For example they might have signed up in error or after reading your welcome email decided that they do not want to hear from you after all.

It is also a good idea to contact your list – say every six months – to ask them if they are happy to continue receiving emails from you. This serves to remind them of who you are and what you do and serves as an opportunity for you to “take the temperature” of your list. By this I mean you get to see if the people on your list are still interested in hearing from you.

Don’t worry if people unsubscribe – if they don’t want to hear from  you then there really is no point in sending them emails in the first place. And the people who do like you will like you even more for having taken the time to send them an email asking how they were.

 

 

Always Ask For Permission...And Then Ask Again

Leave Subscribers Alone When They Unsubscribe

From time to time the question arises which goes something like:

“What should I do about people who unsubscribe from my list?”.

So let me throw the question back at you…what should you do when people unsubscribe from your list?

Here are some possible things you could do:

• thank them for being on your list and say goodbye


• thank them for being on your list and ask them if they are really sure they want to leave


• point out that they have just unsubscribed and hint that they really must have made some terrible mistake and should come back right now


• bribe them to come back with some free gift or other


• plead with them to come back because, well just because


• ignore them, they have left already.

Personally I would do the last one and that is the recommended response of the entire Rocket Responder team.

Put it like this. They dumped you. Let them go and move on.

 

Leave Subscribers Alone When They Unsubscribe

Five Reasons Your Emails Are Not Working

If you are not getting the results from your emails that you think you deserve then, in all likelihood, you are probably doing something wrong. When your emails are not working there is usually something that you can do to put things right.

Remember that your subscribers signed up to your list to receive emails from you…they never promised that they would read them or even open them.

Getting over those two hurdles is your job so do it as best as you can.

Here are five reasons you might not be getting open rates as good as you could:

1. Your Subject Lines Are Boring – Get this wrong and people won’t open your email. You must capture people’s attention with the subject line and give them an immediate reason to open your email.


2. Your Content Is Boring – If you are doing ok with subject lines then make sure your content is up to par too.


3. Your Content is Not Relevant – You can send out the most interesting and useful content in the world but if it is not relevant to your audience then they will never act on it. Always target your emails to the needs of your audience.


4. Your Call To Action is Missing or Unclear – If you want someone to do something, such as click on a link, then make this obvious; really, really obvious. Preferably just give your recipients one thing to do so they don’t get confused by a whole range or possible options.


5. You send far too many emails – Let’s just say you get everything right with your emails. They have fantastic subject lines, interesting and relevant content and contain a clear call to action…but still your open rates are declining. It could be because you are sending too many emails. People can get too much of a good thing and that includes your emails. How many is just right will vary from niche to niche and from individual to individual. However if you think you are sending too many emails then cut down things a bit and see what happens.

 

Five Reasons Your Emails Are Not Working

Affiliate Marketing (ii) How Many Affiliate Products Should I Promote?

Promoting affiliate products: This is the second of two RocketResponder blog posts addressing the subject of affiliate marketing.

Last time we looked at one way of choosing affiliate products to promote while today we will discuss numbers.

This post actually comes from the following question which was recently asked to me: “How many affiliate products should I promote?”

This is another very sensible question and one that almost every new affiliate marketer must wrestle with when they first start online.

There is no easy answer like 7, 12 or 42 and even the best answer will have rather a large element of “well it depends” when discussing the issue.

The factors on which it could depend might include:

• the time you have to devote for affiliate marketing


• your budget (promoting multiple products may being in more money but will have higher costs such as marketing for example) and


• the availability of suitable products in your chosen niche

However the golden rule should be that you should never, ever, spread yourself too thinly by promoting too many products.

This will dilute your overall effort which could result in you getting average or bad results across multiple products rather than getting good to great results in a small number of products.

Also if you promote “x” on Monday, “y” on Tuesday, “z” on Wednesday and jump back to ‘a” on Thursday then your subscribers will think you are just chasing the money and could not care less about what you promote as long as you get paid.

I cannot emphasize enough how off putting this really is.

Therefore it would be far better to start by promoting only ONE product, preferably something you actually use yourself (an obvious example would be an autoresponder like RocketResponder) and become an expert in it.

Share your expert knowledge of the product with your list, hold online advice classes, encourage your potential customers to come to YOU with their questions rather than the product owner and the commissions will follow.

Only then should you move on and promote a second product – use some of the money you have built up from promoting the first product to begin to promote the second and then move onto a third when the time is right.

It can very often be far better to become a master of a very limited number of products than try to juggle the promotion of several at once – especially if the products are spread over multiple niches or specialist areas.

Become an expert in one small niche and dominate…this is one area where it can really pay to be the big fish in the small pond.

 

Affiliate Marketing (ii) How Many Affiliate Products Should I Promote?

Affiliate Marketing (i) Choose Your Affiliate Products With Care

I had a couple of questions about affiliate marketing recently so I have chosen to address them in two RocketResponder blog posts.

The first question I got was: “How do I know what affiliate products to promote?”

This is a great question because there must be hundreds of thousands of potential products out there from which you could potentially earn good affiliate commissions.

It is really tempting to think along the following terms – well if I choose products which have relatively high price tags and large affiliate payouts then this is the quickest way for me to make a lot of money.

I think there are many people who think exactly like this but I am not sure it is producing particularly good results.

The problem is that this approach looks at things from the wrong perspective…you are looking at the problem from your own perspective and not thinking at all about the point of view of your customer.

Instead focus on the product or service you are thinking of promoting and fully investigate what it has to offer a buyer.

Here are some questions I would ask myself when looking for affiliate products to promote:

• what does the product actually do?


• does it deliver what it says it will deliver?


• would I use it myself?


• would I be happy recommending this product to a close family member or friend?


• is it good value for money?


• do I feel good about myself promoting it?


• can I get excited about this product?


• does the company or person behind it have any proven track record?


• what do existing customers say about the person or company behind this product?


• is this product likely to be here for the long term?

These are just some of the questions that I came up with off the top of my head but they are all important questions which need to be addressed.

Notice that the entire focus is on the product or service…ie what benefits it could have to the end user, because this is what you are selling.

Satisfy yourself that the product is good, then learn how to use it and you will be best placed to sell it to your customers.

The commission structure…well that should be the last thing on your mind.

Affiliate Marketing (i) Choose Your Affiliate Products With Care