Can’t I just build an email list, send affiliate offers, and reap the big bucks?
Absolutely not. If it was that easy, we’d all be rich living on a yacht somewhere warm. Finding success with email marketing is extremely complicated and there isn’t a list you can follow to guarantee to provide assurance that you’ll make a 5 or 6 or even 7 digit income, but there certainly are some guidelines that I can help you out with. These guidelines if you decide not to follow you will find it nearly impossible (or indeed impossible) to succeed, but if deciding to follow them, your chances will be much greater. I would love to hear what has worked and hasn’t worked for you in the comments area!
1) If you don’t want to read the email, neither will they. After drafting up an email for your email marketing campaign, actually read it. Think if the reader would derive any knowledge from the email and benefit in some way. If they won’t, don’t consider sending it. Every single email you send to your list must involve excellent content that makes readers look forward to future emails. If you don’t have anything important to send, don’t send anything at all as to reduce the risk of unsubscribers and unhappy readers.
2) Know who your target market is. The people in your list probably have many interests… but they only joined your list for one of them. If your site is in the weight loss niche, don’t send them content and offers for anything else. Don’t guess and hope that they might be interested in it. Whatever the content is about where users opted-in at is what you need to get focused on. If they weren’t interested in what was on that page they wouldn’t have opted-in in the first place.
3) 75% content, 25% offers. The goal for the majority of people when it comes to email marketing is to make an income out of it. If you constantly send offers to your list they’re going to be much less likely to purchase anything through you via your recommendation. A good rule is to provide around 3 emails of excellent content for every 1 1 email that you are promoting an offer in. Your list is valueless if no one ever opens the emails you send so be sure to not burn your list out or all your work will be a loss.
4) Learn about the products you’re promoting, purchase and use them if necessary. If you promote a product, someone purchases it, and the product ends up being terrible, never expect them to buy something again. If you need to purchase it or test it to make sure it’s something worthwhile for people to use let alone pay money for, so be it. This especially goes for when your list grows larger and you have the potential to make thousands of dollars per email. Big paychecks like that for just having to give an e-Book, software, or website a “test-run” or “test-read” is certainly worth it (and I’m sure you agree).
5) Always edit and re-edit before sending. Don’t send emails with misspelled words and improper grammar. It’s just sloppy and unpleasant to read. Read through it a couple times before making it final. Most important of all, don’t mess up the spelling in the title of the email! If this isn’t something you’re strong at you can always have other people look it over or outsource the work. Websites such as Elance.com (an outsourcing network) have people that are willing to do great work for inexpensive prices.
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