Email Marketing Campaigns and Open Rates.

I have to make a confession. I am not a great listbuilder. I can't seem to pull the trigger on every big mega guru launch as it comes. I have a hard time promoting things that I don't personally use or haven't tried in the past. I am a stickler for things that I find useful and obviously, since I have been doing IM for almost 10 years now in some shape or form, my viewpoint on "useful" is pretty strict.

All these things said, I do find email marketing to be probably the biggest challenge out of all other forms of internet marketing....

It isn't too hard to rank for a long tail keyword.

It isn't too hard to build a webpage/site/sales copy and sell things.

It also isn't too hard to craft an email or autoresponder series and send it....

The hard part of email marketing is getting the person on the other end to actually open up your email and read it. And to be real frank, I don't think it is as easy as creating a whopping headline (although it could be a factor).

true story

Way, way back....back before I knew what affiliate marketing was....before RSS really took off...before I knew how to build a website (I was using a website builder)....before I had the thought of selling anything to people....

I built a newsletter. This newsletter was in a niche that I was actively involved in and absolutely was obsessed with. I was extremely active in the community, posting in forums and building connections. I put out the newsletter once a week...it only had news about the niche (of course, I slanted it to my opinion).

Mind you, I had no idea what open rates were (nor did I care). I didn't "suggest" much and the stuff I did suggest came with no strings attached.

My open rates for my newsletter was in the 60-75% range. I got emails daily from people who asked questions.

People found me credible and recommended them to friends. It didn't take long for my newsletter to have nearly 10,000 people on it.

Fast forward to today. I do have a couple lists in the internet marketing niche. That said, I don't have the extraordinary open rates that I had with my first newsletter. In fact, I have never been able to duplicate those numbers.

Why is this?

A couple possibilities come to mind here and while I am nowhere near where I think I should be, either in numbers or in open rates, I do think that they could help some of you who are just building your list up....

The pundits of list building talk about building credibility. They point to giving free stuff to build credibility.

The idea is to give so much value that the reader/subscriber will think that you are a great guy and want to learn more from you...buy your stuff...ect.

But is credibility really that easy?

I say no. And the reason why I say this is because so many people subscribe and use this as a way to promote to their list. F-R-E-E doesn't make you more credible. FREE simply makes you yet another marketer looking for an easier way out than to actually connect with your list.

After all, giving something away for free (that you didn't make) doesn't necessarily move a list to like you more. And frankly, it doesn't really come across as sincere.

Now, you may disagree with me here. You may think that giving stuff away is the quickest way to making a living online. And, if you have a large list, then yeah, you can possibly make a little money on the side just by the volume (playing the numbers game).

But I go back to my original newsletter that got such phenomenal open rates which I incidentally gave nothing away (other than information)...

What made that list more different than my current lists that are opened 25-35% of the time?

The answer is credibility. I had it then. I have it to a point now. But it is nowhere near where it was.

One of my favorite lists I am on happens to be from a fellow warrior...Paul Myers. Perhaps you have heard of him.

Paul defies everything that the list building gurus tells you do. In fact, Paul goes in the opposite direction.

His emails are long....very long...even in blog post standards. He typically crafts his emails like a storyteller would craft a novella. He also manages somehow to tie in whatever he is pushing into the story and slides it in in a way that it doesn't even seem like he is pitching anything....

And because his writing style is so good, he manages to speak with authority and credibility in a way that most list builders could only dream of writing. Although I don't know his numbers, I would imagine that his open rates are astronomical.

Anyway, I would love to hear anyone's opinion on email marketing...