In practice, a huge number of successful and modern business today relies primarily on email marketing. There are people who earn millions of dollars a year, and who do not have your site, all of which have a mailing list that lead to the principles which I will mention in this article.
Bowl of fruit
For a complete understanding of the principles, we will take a metaphor, which can be used in any business. Let's imagine that our product bowl of fruit - apples, bananas and oranges.
Suppose now that we have a list of email addresses of people who sign up on our site because they are interested in fruit. For example, 10,000 people.
What is the most common mistake that people make? Simply start sending emails with contents such as:
"NEW! TASTY A BOWL OF FRUIT! ORDER NOW! SALE! DISCOUNTS! ACTION! "
What happens when you send this mail for the first time? It happens that, for example, 3% of people click and buy our fruit bowl.
Next time, when you send an email to similar content, will buy maybe 2% of people. And after that, 1%.
Then will appear the competition that will begin to send them emails similar. "OUR BOWL OF FRUIT IS THE SWEETEST. SALE, SALE, DISCOUNT, TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY ... "
After a very short time, how do you think people will react when they see that they have received email from you? I do not want to be vulgar, but I show an image that perfectly illustrates the reaction of most people:
People generally do not like vendors and messages that are selling something. If you think that's enough that you write a "discount" - is not. The problem still remains - you are constantly looking for people to buy something from you, and to be perceived as boring, blatant, and repulsive.
If you go this route, here is the story of email marketing ends. Most people will quickly unsubscribe from your mailing list or put you in Spam. Yes, you'll be selling something small, but it is a short range. You can try to drag more people on your list, so that new people bomb invitation for purchase, but as time went on, there will be fewer new people to sign up to your list. Most people will be those who have already experienced your solicitation and is not reapply to receive emails from you.
In the long run, your brand becomes extremely negatively perceived. Wherever people hear your name will say "again, they liked to bother," and it will be a general picture about you.
How to properly do?
Now, when we saw the email marketing does not work (although it also works on a large number of people), let's see how they do it experienced Internet marketing experts.
Let us start again from a list of people who have signed up to our mailing list because they are interested in fruit. Now, instead of them bored to buy our bowl, we'll send them an email with the following content:
"We reveal a fantastic recipe for apple pie with very few calories - ready in just 20 minutes! This pie is a complete hit on the Internet among fans of the fruit. Look at this link video how to make this pie - we recorded just for you, the members of our list. "
In the mail made no mention of any purchase, not to mention our bowl of fruit, pretend like it does not exist.
Now, one of the people will click on the link in the email, and will look fantastic tutorial to save these pies. Maybe we'll do it as a video, perhaps as a series of pictures and text, however, must be somewhat multimedia that really has value, and that is something you can not just see anywhere.
At the end of this recipe, when you pass a lot of time, and when people be delighted as you get something really useful, I will mention what? A bowl of fruit. But even after all this, it does not need to act like an advertisement. It now needs to act more as a natural and logical flow of things. For example, something like "This apple pie is fantastic, but otherwise, you can prepare even faster and tastier if you use our bowl of fruit."
So, we will mention our product only at the end, after people receive from us a tremendous value. Previous value that we give people an alibi - when we do that, then we have a legitimate right to eventually ask them to buy something. If this is what we sent them something really interesting and valuable, no one will say "see these manipulators, all of this made to me finally gotten their bowl of fruit."
Next time, we will send a recipe for fruit salad of apples. So we'll mention again at the end of our bowl. Then, we will send them a brief guide through all kinds of apples - which is good to know, how to recognize quality cultivar and so on. And again, at the end of the bowl.
These were just fans of Apple. And our bowl contains many other fruits.
Now, we can send you email about bananas. A fantastic recipe for banana cake. And then, how to make a perfect banana milk shake recipe by South American chefs. At the end of all these recipes again mention our bowl.
Then, e-mails with tips and recipes on oranges. The point is clear.
Building Authority and brands
This approach is excellent for several reasons. First and foremost, people perceive you is very positive. Note: What do they see people who have never in my life have not clicked on one of your email? They see a bunch of emails that you send valuable advice, and in none of these mails are not calling for something to buy. In this way you position yourself as an authority and brand in your area. "Hey, he's the guy that was last week sent a recipe for apple pie, I did not get to look at, but it's totally cool." Will there be someone to unsubscribe from your mailing list? It's hard.
How people perceive you in this case? If we introduce a scale from 1 to 10, and if one is extremely negative, neutral 5 and 10 extremely positive, people perceive you as 7. The aim of this approach to email marketing is that people always stay at number seven, or more.
The difference is this: in this approach, the likelihood that someone will buy something from you, the time increases. In the second approach, the "push people to buy", the probability that it will ever buy is decreasing with time.
But not only that - when you position yourself as a brand in its field, people can sell much more than a bowl. Because you gain their trust. Once coupe bowl of fruit, you can sell them and blender for fruit, juice, and many other relevant things that come from you.
Segmentation list and CRM
Another important thing about this approach is something called a segmentation of the list, a very important element in email marketing. Every time you send an email about some other fruit, will get the attention of other people. If you want to go a step further, you can deal with more complex analysis. You can create subgroups within your list - people who clicked on the emails about apples as "Apple fans", so they send more emails about apples and so on.
This is now a special area called CRM (customer relationship management) and to have dealt with, you need some CRM software. With this software, you can make all the people who clicked on the link provided on the apples will automatically be entered in the "Apple fans", and many other things.
Training, and Sales
If people learn how to do something, and only then offer them something likely to buy from you is much greater.
What do you think would happen if I now, at the end of this article wrote, "If you want to know more details about email marketing - more examples from practice, how to segment lists, how to write good mails sale - Sign up my seminar. "The number of people who would volunteer for this seminar would be much greater than that I have not written any educational text, that I just opened this blog and wrote "ACTION! BIG DISCOUNT FOR SEMINAR ON EMAIL MARKETING, sign up while you still have a place. "
Collecting email address
So far we have talked about what to do with mailing list. The question is - how to get to the base of email addresses, in this case, "fruit lovers".
For this, there are a number of ways. If you already have a website, your visitors can in various ways to lure you to leave your email address. The simplest way is to put somewhere on the side of the field site which entered email address, but it is the least efficient - the number of people who will be in this way is very little to report.
A much better way is to apply this same principle - giving some value education. Make a banner that says in large letters "Free: The ten biggest misconceptions about fruit" - leave email address and we will send you a short text. Or video. In this way, you increase the number of people applying.
The next step would be to put these people in the midst of the screen, at some point, stay on the site. Some popup window, where this would be written the same - something about the fruit, very interesting, I can find out if you leave your email address.
Squeeze page
Another way to collect email addresses is to create a special web page that is used only for that purpose. This page is called a squeeze page and is used to collect the so-called opt-in email addresses. It should include the attractive design, interesting story that explains why someone would leave email address.
This page has one specific rule regarding linking. Nowhere on the website must not have other options besides link for entering email address. All that stands to squeeze landing page - all attractive design, interesting story .. all this is intended only one purpose - leaving email address.
Today, we often use video squeeze page. That means, instead of text, a person that story, or the voice that tells a presentation with text on the screen.
Most commonly, the email software called an autoresponder set, and that means that people automatically receive certain email when logged into the list. So if your squeeze page says "Sign up to get a free guide about all kinds of fruits", it means that the instant you leave the email, the person receives a link to download this guide, or link to view a video that is online.
Bringing people to Squeeze page can be done in various ways - through good targetovane Facebook advertising through Google AdWords advertising to people who are searching for terms related to fruit and so on.
Which software to use?
Today it is used mainly web-based software, and some of the best known are MailChimp, AWeber, Get Response, and others. When selecting a provider, avoid any suspicious too cheap, because it is likely a large part of emails people end up in your spam folder and will not see them. The price paid email newsletter providers such as MailChimp actually the price of their reputation. Gmail and other providers will rarely put in the spam email that is sent via MailChimp.
Small recommendation for all to start using MailChimp. First 2000 subscribers are free and you can send a total of 12,000 emails per month, meaning six releases per month, if you have a list of 2,000 people. And it's very user-friendly, which is very important for beginners.
This is summarized all the most important of email marketing. And now, get to work :)