E-mail Marketing - Where to Start? Is it Right for Me?

Start a blog. That will be the best way to atract people to your services. Also do you tube promotions and slideshare. Do you have any books you have written that you could get your friends to review on Amazon or perhaps you could write a basic guide on editing to give away on Kindle.

No clue what you mean with "CTA" but I think I get the picture.

The first step should be to build yourself a presence.
Right now you have 2 links in your signature and they are "dead" right now.
There is no fiver gig and the elance link shows an extended coffee break.
While I do understand why you do that, it drives people away.

So, build yourself a web presence.
1 page that shows what you do and what you offer.
That does not have to cost money. Could be on weebly or wordpress.com or blogger. But better would be on your own domain.

If you have money for a 2 day vacation you should have those 20 bucks
that are needed for a domain and 1 year hosting.

Or you can build that presence right here on WF in the form of a warrior for hire listing or a classified listing.

I do not have a crystal ball but most likely you can make more money here on WF as a freelance writer than on fiverr where you give away $1 for every $4 you make.

I'm of the belief that email marketing can help ANYONE. It doesn't matter if you're an astronaut or a pastry chef.

Here's a quick brainstorm session for you:

Have an opt-in form with a catchy headline like "Find out why your outsourced writers are costing you a FORTUNE" or "Find out why 99.99% of outsourced writers RIP YOU OFF", something compelling like that.

After you engage them with conversation (via your free giveaway, pdf, whatever) - , have a followup email every day talking about how superior your content is to other low quality content creators.

You're a writer - so be creative.

If you continually email them promoting your stuff, they'll either buy or die, which is fine in your case.

People that want your services will be compelled to order (if you're writing in the email is good), and people that aren't interested probably would have never signed up in the first place.



As far as driving traffic? Well you're doing fine now. Turn your signature links into a squeeze page, and you're on your way.

If you want to be a email marketer you must get an auto responder and set up a sales funnel
to run your list thru about 30 days for starter.
Then start building your list.
Work you list and give them things of value so you build a good relationship with them
That will be a good start.
Hope this helps you if you want to talk about this more you can PM me

I agree with most of the above.... My advise would be start building a following as an expert in your niche ... this can be done by creating a product to give away then use an autoresponder to keep to touch with your followers delivering great content via a mix of free and offers... Autoresponders I would recommend would be Aweber or Get Response these are the most reliable ... Hope this helps Martin

Agreed David! Dive into blogging to build a qualified, targeted, trusted list, because when people subscribe based on the value you provide you are likely to see many more conversions, versus buying strange, cold leads, and adding to your list.

All the best!

You should read many email marketing lessons. Making money from your list is not a simple matter. You have to learn how to do it the right way.

Yes if you are trying to run an online business you should have a blog running.
post almost everyday if you can, pick a niche and then run with it - if you are a writer then i'm sure you can post daily.

this way people see your work on your posts.
you will attract people to your site and then have your squeeze pages setup so that if people love your work they can opt in .. or also have a fiverr account set up linked to your blog and if anyone wants to purchase your work they link straight to fiverr (or equivalent)

this way you are branding yourself, building a list at same time.
If you wanted to you could also start up a Youtube channel and throw some videos together about what you do or more so tips on how to write etc

Before you do any of that, ask yourself: Who's Your Target Market?

Once you know who you're targeting, think of what THEY're looking for and what type of report/offer would entice them to sign up.

Some ideas could be:
10 Tips For Hiring a Transcriber Right Now
My 10 Step Blueprint for Writing High Converting Review Articles

or something along those lines.

It needs to be something your target market wants and something that prepares them to learn about how YOUR services can help them solve their problems.

So determine your target market first, create an info product that show cases your services, then an autoresponder series that shares your story, your business, and how your services can benefit them. Then promote it to your target market.

Is list building right for a writing service?

Only if you want a higher conversion rate, a better relationship with your buyers and having a long term list of people who have bought and will likely buy your services again.

As long as you aren't promoting affiliate products, you can use MailChimp and a free blog on blogger or wordpress to get started. After a few jobs, you should update to a real website if you can't afford one now.

Does that answer your question?

Could you offer a free five minute consultation to your new subscribers, where you look over some content for free and give one or two tips? This could easily be done over Google+ voice/chat and would only require a skim of the material. In a way, it would give you the insider advantage over your competitor as you already have the content the client wants edited in your hands. They have already made it past the hurdle and given you the content to work on. So now, you just need to follow up by providing enough incentive/reasons they should use your services.

The very first thing, email marketing and inbound marketing are NOT the same thing.

Secondly, you really need to figure out your marketing strategy before you take any step.

And you need a professional digital marketing specialist for that.