How do I start Email Marketing and does it still work?!

8 years ago

i know you want to start with a lead magnet and provide valuable content to create credibility, but how soon before you start promoting products or services to your subscribers? i have an aweber account and wouldnt think you hit them with an offer in the first follow up email after then opt in?

how many people on the list do you feel is necessary before you can start promoting said products or services?

what niches are the most popular? im guessing weight loss and money making is more popular then fly fishing?

after your list, do you promote your affiliate links withing that niche or do you push some product inventory you have access too?

whats your thoughts on digital products? selling audio courses or selling ebooks?

Thanks
2 replies

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Rob Whisonant

8 years ago

Originally Posted by Roscoe4

i know you want to start with a lead magnet and provide valuable content to create credibility, but how soon before you start promoting products or services to your subscribers? i have an aweber account and wouldnt think you hit them with an offer in the first follow up email after then opt in?

You should start selling to your list from day 1. But, you don't want to hard sell. You should be providing them with quality actionable content. That content can then recommend a product they can buy if they want more detailed information or additional slants on the same information.

You can also show them how to do something manually for free. Then let them know (don't push) about products that automate the process you just showed them how to do for free.

This type of soft sell helps a lot with building your reputation with your subscribers.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

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John Cho

8 years ago

Originally Posted by Roscoe4

i know you want to start with a lead magnet and provide valuable content to create credibility, but how soon before you start promoting products or services to your subscribers? i have an aweber account and wouldnt think you hit them with an offer in the first follow up email after then opt in?

how many people on the list do you feel is necessary before you can start promoting said products or services?

what niches are the most popular? im guessing weight loss and money making is more popular then fly fishing?

after your list, do you promote your affiliate links withing that niche or do you push some product inventory you have access too?

whats your thoughts on digital products? selling audio courses or selling ebooks?

If your list knows you well before they have opted in e.g. they've seen you on Youtube, blog etc you could start soft selling to them from day 1.
If not and it's cold traffic - from my experience you'd want to give great value adding content before you start selling to them and when you do you start of with doing soft selling. I'd say at least 7 days mixed with personalized emails and great jaw dropping content.

There's no limit to how many people you need on the list before you sell and weightloss and money making is HUGE but there's HUGE competition as well. If you niche down it's better but.. you will probably have less affiliate products to promote. So it's a choice you have to make.

And from what I can tell - go with digital if you're selling. No logistics and physical stuff to worry about. Not sure about whether audio is better but I guess audio and video courses tend to sell more than traditional ebooks.

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james flynn

8 years ago

Originally Posted by John Cho

Ok.. let me try to answer the 2 big questions that I've been getting recently from some of the newbie folks

How do I start doing email marketing and does it still work?

Here's a quick step by step on how to start doing email marketing.

There are various ways to setup to start doing email marketing so by no means is this the only way to start.

It was just my way.

So here goes.

First of all pick a NICHE.. what you like or specialize in. e.g. Money making? Personal development? Health and fitness? Hobbies?

Now..

1. Get the tools (there are free trials for most of these products):
- Autoresponder - Pick one.. Aweber, GetResponse, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Sendlane, etc etc
- Optin page builder - Pick one.. Clickfunnels, Leadpages, Profitbuilder etc etc
- Buy a domain name and hosting service - Namecheap, Bluehost, etc etc

2. Make a free gift to giveaway as a "lead magnet" (They sign up to your autoresponder in exchange for their free gift)
- You can use a PLR (Private Label Right's items that you can buy and use as is) or better to search the web for some really great content and put together a PDF file. It doesn't have to be fancy just information you found valuable and helpful - make a nice cover for it.

3. Make your email address under the domain name you purchased.. e.g. domain name - test.com.. email address john.cho@test.com

4. Design your Optin page (most of the tools mentioned above are easy drag and drop tools) - have fun with it and make it similar to other optin pages that you saw. (Don't worry about conversion rates and split testing and all that for now.)

5. Upload your free gift to your new domain after you install Wordpress.

6. Now connect the tools together - Autoresponder <-> Optin page <-> Hosting (You can find guides on how to do this - I think there should be some on Youtube)

7. Test as though you are a person wanting to get the book and see if it's working. E.g. Go to optin page, put in details and see if you can download the book.

8. If all's working, then get traffic to your optin page - Paid (Solo-ads or others) or Free (many ways, Youtube, SEO etc)

9. Now you are starting to build a list.

10. From here start putting in emails in your autoreponder so that when you have new subscribers, they join start receive emails in sequence.

That's about it!

Ok that was a really simple guide on how to get setup to start doing email marketing. This is really a rough "guide" but the details you can learn from Youtube and on various sites for free.

To answer the other question - Does Email Marketing still work?

Well all the big name marketers that I follow.. all do Email Marketing..

Ryan Levesque
Ramit Sethi
Jeff Walker
Frank Kern
Russel Brunson
Jon Loomer
Anik Singal

This is what Ramit Sethi said on his growthlab site..

"It might surprise you to hear that we generate more than 90% of our revenue using email. And that revenue is in the millions of dollars.
Clearly something is working."

If you ask me I think it's probably the most effective way to earn money online..

Let me know what you think!

Informative piece. One thing I would like to add is regarding the usage of advanced tools. If used effectively, it can minimize a lot of head ache throughout this whole campaign.My personal favorite are Litmus and Email on Acid. I came across these tools through a blog and I love their feature regarding the deliverability test. It clears out any potential problems associated with certain domains and IP and ensures that your email reaches effectively at the receiving end.Overall, a good article.

Cheers-James

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objectiveman

8 years ago

Yes, email marketing still works. It reportedly has much better metrics than using things like twitter and even youtube. EM has like a 4,000% ROI over the long term. Before email marketing there were people making a killing using snail mail.

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John Cho

8 years ago

Originally Posted by objectiveman

Yes, email marketing still works. It reportedly has much better metrics than using things like twitter and even youtube. EM has like a 4,000% ROI over the long term. Before email marketing there were people making a killing using snail mail.

I saw Dan Kennedy's seminars about making a killing using snail mail. It was pretty mind blowing.

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Dave Sev

8 years ago

Hi,

Thank you for the helpful insights in this post. I am a newbie and am still putting things together, but I was hoping you could clarify a few points.

I am in the process of writing a pdf to give away, as this is in order to build a list and gather emails. I have not yet created a site or a blog or any online presence.

I plan on first creating a site and give away my ebook in exchange for their emails.

My questions are :

1. How much of an online presence do I need to get started?

2. What kind of an online presence is the most basic and easy to manage (I am doing this after work currently so I'm trying to do the most effective things first).

3. Do I need my products ready to sell before giving away my free ebook? Or should I start with the free ebook in any case as the product may take a further few weeks to produce after the first ebook is out.

4. How much content do I need to be able to provide for my email list once I have their emails? And do I need to make sure I have a ton of content to continue sending them? Should any of this delay the free ebook?

5. How do you keep up the email list active with new content?

Thanks,
Dave

Thanks
1 reply

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John Cho

8 years ago

Originally Posted by Dave Sev

Hi,

Thank you for the helpful insights in this post. I am a newbie and am still putting things together, but I was hoping you could clarify a few points.

I am in the process of writing a pdf to give away, as this is in order to build a list and gather emails. I have not yet created a site or a blog or any online presence.

I plan on first creating a site and give away my ebook in exchange for their emails.

My questions are :

1. How much of an online presence do I need to get started?

2. What kind of an online presence is the most basic and easy to manage (I am doing this after work currently so I'm trying to do the most effective things first).

3. Do I need my products ready to sell before giving away my free ebook? Or should I start with the free ebook in any case as the product may take a further few weeks to produce after the first ebook is out.

4. How much content do I need to be able to provide for my email list once I have their emails? And do I need to make sure I have a ton of content to continue sending them? Should any of this delay the free ebook?

5. How do you keep up the email list active with new content?

Thanks,
Dave

Hey Dave

1. How much of an online presence do I need to get started? The more you have the better but you could essentially start with zero presence.

2. What kind of an online presence is the most basic and easy to manage (I am doing this after work currently so I'm trying to do the most effective things first). For me I have a blog but don't really keep it up to date. As I mainly deal with paid traffic. Why? It's simple easy targeted and quick.
If you don't have time get paid traffic to your optin page and test with that first. What I do is buy Solo ads. They're targeted traffic and if you get trustworthy guys you can get some good deals.

3. Do I need my products ready to sell before giving away my free ebook? Or should I start with the free ebook in any case as the product may take a further few weeks to produce after the first ebook is out.
There's no need to make a product to sell. You can use your free ebook to generate a list. Just make sure you have a good ebook that people would want in your niche.

4. How much content do I need to be able to provide for my email list once I have their emails? And do I need to make sure I have a ton of content to continue sending them? Should any of this delay the free ebook?
This all depends but if you want to test (which I recommend you do) go with the free ebook, and at least 1 content email to send out. Then start working on the rest of the sequence of emails.

5. How do you keep up the email list active with new content? You can grab content related to your niche from different sites and share them on an email to your list. If you're busy you can write them once a week.

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soutthills01

8 years ago

I built a list of over 16,000 subscribers in under a year. Getting subscribers won't make you money, it is getting people that subscribe to actually buy. That is going to be your biggest hurdle. Getting traffic is the easiest part of the process. Actually making money is almost impossible unfortunately...

Thanks
2 replies

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asmaralee

8 years ago

Originally Posted by soutthills01

I built a list of over 16,000 subscribers in under a year. Getting subscribers won't make you money, it is getting people that subscribe to actually buy. That is going to be your biggest hurdle. Getting traffic is the easiest part of the process. Actually making money is almost impossible unfortunately...

You are right.. But it also depends on the products which you are promoting and the type of relationship that you have with your subs. If you can build a nice rapport, then you can sell easily.

Thanks

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John Cho

8 years ago

Originally Posted by soutthills01

I built a list of over 16,000 subscribers in under a year. Getting subscribers won't make you money, it is getting people that subscribe to actually buy. That is going to be your biggest hurdle. Getting traffic is the easiest part of the process. Actually making money is almost impossible unfortunately...

Yes you're right. Traffic is the easiest part because you can either pay to get it or get it naturally. Either way it's not hard if you have either money or time.
Conversion is the real difficult part.
As with the problem you're having how did you generate that list? The quality of the list is important too..
I mean lets be honest in the Solo Ad market we talk about Tier 1 traffic.. Tier 1 meaning subscribers from countries that actually "buy stuff" on the Internet.. namely US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc etc . If your list is made up of folks from third world countries well you're going to have a tough time selling..
Also it's about relationship and trust building - building enough KLT (Know Like and Trust) so that your list starts to trust your recommendations enough to start buying.
You really have to nurture your list.

Thanks

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sendizo

8 years ago

email is the best way to reach, nurture turn leads to sales. its best way to communicate with subscribers. 68 of people check their mailbox first thing in the morning on mobile.
so yes its still very effective.

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patrickclayton

8 years ago

I stopped mailing for around 30 days and the subs are not opening my mails only. I guess this is one of the biggest drawbacks of email marketing.

Thanks

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Eden A

8 years ago

Got a question.
How is Constant Contact, Mailchimp comparing to sendlane?

Thanks
1 reply

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cscarpero 8 years ago

Originally Posted by Eden A

Got a question.
How is Constant Contact, Mailchimp comparing to sendlane?

Don't know anything about Sendlane, but do know a lot about Constant Contact. It's an ok program. Personally, I like ActiveCampaign a lot more though. It has a lot more funcionality and costs less than CC
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web@engineer

8 years ago

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desireedavid 8 years ago

Well, as long as you comply to the anti-spam laws and build an organic email list, then you shouldn't worry too much about being marked as spam.
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â€œCreativity is intelligence having fun.â€ â€“ Albert Einstein
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Matthew Iannotti

8 years ago

Booked a few more demo's this week from cold emailing, and I do very targeted on a very small scale. Absolutely still works, if done correctly.

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Paul Wilson

8 years ago

My challenge is finding good quality content that I can use as a lead magnet. I've been uable to locate any decent PLR or RR I can use or eve rewrite.

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luciesmazanska

8 years ago

first you have to do research for the type of content you are sending to the users through email .Content should be small and more precise as well as lucrative . The interface should be as good that user cant resist himself from clicking on the ad.

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MikeBestrow

8 years ago

great information. thanks for sharing.

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desireedavid

8 years ago

This is very helpful to those looking to start email marketing. Thank you, John!

I do prefer growing an organic list. Costs much less (although takes a lot more time) and you are sure that the people you send emails to actually want them.

Thanks

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desireedavid

8 years ago

First of all pick a NICHE.. what you like or specialize in. e.g. Money making? Personal development? Health and fitness? Hobbies?

I think this is the most crucial step. Make sure the niche that you pick is one that you would enjoy. How can you create compelling content when you yourself do not even believe what you are offering? Have fun!

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