In 2013, effectively using autoresponders and email marketing is more important than ever. Search traffic and social media marketing need to be building your list! You must create and maintain relationships to be successful.
All of the highest earning businesses I have ever worked with are experts at email marketing. That is why we publish what they know here. Today, top affiliate mentor John Gibb is sharing his very valuable tips on building and marketing to pre-qualified lists.
I remember when I got my first subscriber. I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline and thought to myself, “Wow, this works!”
It’s exciting to see your lists fatten over time and grow exponentially. 450 subscribers last month, 732 as of today… Email marketing can make you feel like a little Einstein in your own laboratory.
Watching numbers grow and tracking conversions is fun. But knowing how to talk with your readers and captivate them is where the money hides – and is the hardest part to get right.
Here’s how:
Prequalify Your Audience
Prequalifying your audience has surprising power to build a highly engaged list, yet most people neglect its power completely, from beginners to veterans alike.
Prequalification is to a landing page what is “name personalization” to email marketing. It gets the attention of your targeted reader, at the right time.
Hook with the Headline
To begin pre-qualifying subscribers, write a specific, highly- relevant headline for your target audience. You’ll generate a higher subscription rate because visitors feel it speaks directly to their needs.
Compare these two headlines:
- Free Advertising Tips
- 21 Free PPC Advertising Tips for Small Businesses
Which headline gets your attention? Probably the second, because it has three key advantages over the first:
- It’s specific, promising 21 tips versus an unnamed amount
- It’s relevant to a specific topic
- It targets small businesses only, not just anyone and everyone
Go tweak your opt-in headline right now and make it relevant to your specific audience and offer. From this day on, begin pre-qualifying who should be on your list.
Write for the Future
People dream about their future all the time, which is why your emails should propel readers into the future and meet them there.
You can use a neat little NLP technique called “future pacing” to achieve this. It allows people to feel emotions about the future and imagine experiences they could have, all from the present moment.
By embedding the right words into your writing, you could inspire, encourage or help your subscribers to take an action, avoid a particular situation, and so forth.
Psychologists and neurologists have learned over the last decade about the brain flexibility and why the human mind cannot tell the difference between real and imagination. If something that you can think of (and desire) is vivid enough within your mind, then “visualization” will help YOU attract it. “The SECRET” is actually a movie which I highly recommend, exposing and exemplifying this technique in detail.
How to influence, not manipulate!
Next, I’ll share with you a series of specific verbs you can inject into your writing (and talking) which arouse our 5 basic human senses that we know from Aristotle: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
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Sight stimulating verbs
Look
See
Imagine
Picture
Watch
Observe
Witness
Notice
-
Smell stimulating verbs
Smell
Feel
Inhale
Scent
-
Taste stimulating verbs
Drink
Sip
Infuse
Taste
Savor
-
Touch stimulating verbs
Touch
Feel
Grab
Hold
Pinch
Tap
Hit
Hug
Kiss
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Hearing stimulating verbs
Hear
Listen
These action verbs are powerful communication tools when used correctly. They shouldn’t be missing from your copywriting toolbox.
If you want to master email autoresponder marketing,
you need to learn how to write like a pro.
You, the Magician of your audience!
Writing like a pro requires you read a lot (on a daily basis). Consume anything you can think of: blogs, articles and magazines from your industry as well as any other (non-relevant) niche. It helps a lot to have wide knowledge, as you’ll be able to connect two unrelated topics and share all kinds of insights with your audience. See how I’m doing it here with Oprah and email autoresponders…
The more you know, the more you can share. Your subscribers and customers will perceive you as an “authority” or as someone who’s a specialist in the field. And most of the time, that’s all it takes to become an authentic person and build trust with your followers.
This guy makes research an art. And it’s so evident that people who know more than you – will never actually subscribe to your mailing list, unless you stir their curiosity and promise something they don’t know yet. That’s why you have to learn to become the magician of your audience.
Through extensive, in-depth research, you’ll be learning more than
your audience. You’ll become an authority in the industry.
Through emphatic writing, you’ll become the magician. You’ll fascinate your audience, not just with your “knowledge”, but with the way you’ll be “connecting” one on one with each subscriber.
Write your email autoresponder messages like you’d talk with a friend
Empathy is the name of the game. Make the reader feel like he or she knows you personally, and vice-versa. We both know that people buy from other people that they like, know and trust.
The common advice here would be to write in a natural tone. Adopt a casual style, use short paragraphs and easy to understand language. Unless your subscribers are inventors or teachers, you want to use words and phrases even a 9-year old could understand.
If you wanted to learn about starting a blog, would you prefer to take lessons from someone who could explain to you everything step-by-step and in simple terms, or from a “techie” guy who breathes WordPress coding and html programming?
At the same time, you’ll have to form your unique writing style. This is where you pepper your content with personal stories, case studies, quotes and anecdotes.
Lesson learned here:
- Write your email autoresponders like you’d talk one-on-one with a friend.
- Make the discussion important, relevant and interesting.
In a conversation like this, you’re not the only one talking; you also have to pay close attention to what your friend has to say to you, right?
Write your email autoresponders from the readers’ perspective
Your email should answer this question:
WIIFM (What’s In It for Me?)
And you cannot really know what your subscribers need, and want, unless you study your market, and understand your general audience. Your subscribers might have particular needs, wants, and challenges. Your objective is to uncover them.
It’s time you get into your subscribers’ shoes, here’s how:
- Start asking questions…
- Create surveys…
- Hold contests and award exciting prizes…
- Stir your community.
Email marketing is not a one-way business strategy. You, as the list owner don’t OWN the megaphone. Let your subscribers be heard!
User Reader’s Feedback
Their feedback is better than money in the bank for you, if you learn how to use it right.
Your subscribers’ feedback helps you…
- Create emails (and content) that rocks
- Inform the reader
- Help him or her do something practical (like installing an opt-in form
- Inspire them to take action and build a squeeze page.
Your subscribers’ feedback is a goldmine for any business. It inspires us to hear about their problems and challenges, and to create relevant solutions to meet the needs and wants of our readers.
CRITICAL PRIORITIES
- Write winning subject lines
When you know what your audience wants, then you can better craft YOUR emails to get high open rates. You don’t write (relevant) subject lines because you want a boost in conversion, but because you want to help the reader open the email.
The purpose of your subject line is to get your email message opened.
Remember, you have something relevant and helpful to share with him or her. Does that make sense?
- Create products that sell
Now is the best time to take email marketing seriously. It’s your responsibility to build a quality mailing list of prospects and customers that want to hear from you, respect you, and buy from you.
Don’t pretend to be someone who you’re not, faking your “authority”, or claiming to know everything.
AUTHOR BOX:
John Gibb is a top affiliate specializing in article writing and pre-selling. He wrote a free guide – “The Road to Success” – detailing the free methods that he used to generate a record breaking 109 affiliate sales in a single day.