It’s not enough to just have email marketing in place–you need to make sure you do it as well as possible.
A quick Google search will show you that hundreds of people are out there giving it a shot on a regular basis, but if you’re even remotely serious about making a profit with an affiliate marketing campaign, you want to put your own strategies into high gear.
So, without further ado, here are 4 highly useful tips to turbocharge your email marketing campaigns.
1. Brevity and the Hook
It’s no secret that people these days have less patience than any other generation in history.
They’re used to seeing what they need, absorbing what they can from it and moving on in a matter of seconds.
The average piece of text has 3-10 seconds to hook a reader and an email has, at most, 51 seconds to make its point. That’s not a lot of time.
So, an email newsletter is not the time to write an epic report on the advantages or value of any given tool you may have developed, nor is it the place for an article you wrote.
To start with, you need to hit your readers with a powerful hook. The place to do this is both in the subject line and in the first line of your email.
Too many people assume that a powerful subject line is all they need, but the subject line only gets someone to open the email, not read it.
Always include the first name of the prospect, which you should have gathered with your opt-in form. With Aweber, you can use the %FIRSTNAME% tag to insert it into a
message or subject.
Then, use a hook that speaks to the needs of your reader.
Questions, bold statements, or lists of valuable topics can be good hooks, but the simplest and most successful method is simply to state how the email will benefit them.
On top of capturing attention, don’t expect to be able to hold it for more than a minute. Keep your message short–less than 400 words and oftentimes much shorter.
With a webpage, you can use images and links to hold attention, but in email, text is all you get, and it needs to be brief.
2. Make It Scannable
Along the same lines as brevity, you need to make sure your messages are nice and scannable. This should be easy enough–it’s the same rule you use for your landing pages.
The good old-fashioned wall of text doesn’t get the job done in the modern world of short attention spans.
Use short lines, line breaks, and lists to break up text.
Here’s a good ‘bad’ example for you:
Dog training is no walk in the park. You’re probably
ripping your hair out right now trying to figure out how
to get your dog off the couch or away from your trash.
However, it doesn’t need to be like that. It starts with
taking control of your dog–being the alpha leader and
holding their attention long enough to instil confidence.
First, you need to create a pack structure in your home.
Then, you need to develop a training routine to show your
dog how to respond to your commands. Then, you need to be
persistent. Click here for my free report on finally
taking control of your house as the alpha leader.
This wall of text is full of information, but someone just scanning their email might completely miss it.
Here is how it should look with the right formatting:
Dog Training Is No Walk in the Park
You’re probably ripping your hair out right now trying to
figure out how to get your dog off the couch or away from
your trash.
However, it doesn’t need to be like that.
It starts with taking control of your dog–being the alpha
leader and holding their attention long enough to instil
confidence.
1. You need to create a pack structure in your home.
2. You need to develop a training routine to show your dog
how to respond to your commands.
3. You need to be persistent.
Click “here” for my free report on finally taking control of
your house as the alpha leader.
It’s broken up, the headline is capitalized and the key points are numbered out to show exactly what the reader will gain by clicking on that link.
They can scan it in a few seconds and decide whether to read the whole thing or click on the link.
3. Enough Content … but Not Too Much
Email marketing is a tricky business because it needs to be full of useful information, but too much can water down your selling points.
My usual advice here is to provide a single, tangible piece of advice in every email you write.
This ensures that you always have a piece of valuable information, but not so much as to overwhelm your readers or dilute what you’re selling.
It also ensures your messages are never too short. Sure, they need to be less than 400 words, but 150 words is too short if you’re trying to offer sound advice.
4. The Call to Action
Every single email you write should have a solid, powerful call to action. I know what you’re thinking–“But I thought I wasn’t supposed to hard-sell in every email!”
I’m not talking about hard selling. I’m talking about a call to action. Not every call to action needs to say “buy me.”
Instead, every email needs to elicit some reaction from your readers to keep them engaged and prepare them to make the big leap when you finally do say “buy me.”
Examples I’ve used before include calling for someone to return to your blog for a long article that wouldn’t fit in an email, or having them visit a news site to read about a niche-related topic.
You could also call them to take action on a particular piece of advice you wrote in an email, or solicit them to keep reading and check for your next email in X days.
Marketing via email is an extremely powerful tool. But, it needs to be done in a way that speaks to the needs and desires of your readers.
They’re short on time, limited in patience, and only willing to do so much at your command. So, be brief, make it scannable, provide value, and always give them a tangible action to complete.
I can all but guarantee that if you do that, you’ll see higher conversion rates and lower unsubscribe rates.
For a class on email marketing that is good for beginners as well as experienced online marketers click here.
Hope you liked the article. Before you go, I want to make sure that you have checked out Patric Chan’s cool video on building a profit online.
Come back soon!
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