Messaging Etiquette

We talk so much about writing the right kind of email messages to your prospective customers whom you have got, or in the process of getting on your opt in list. Now, let us see what goes into making a good email message. This is relevant because the appearance of your content matters in the online marketing business. To look at the various steps involved in getting your message ready to send to your customer:

Composing Your Message

Use WordPad or notepad. Preferably only have 65 characters in each line of text that you write. You must break the line manually after this limit because most email clients have their default set to 65 characters when the message opens. Now if your message exceeds this limit, its very aggravating to have to scroll horizontally and see the entire mail as one long line! It is equally irritating to see emails that have unevenly laid out lines. Looks very untidy and gives the impression that you don’t care about how your messages look. Since none of us want to create that impression, this simple precaution can take care of that.

Making Your Message Personal

Think about how you feel when you are addressed as Dear Subscriber, and how you feel when you are addressed as Dear (your name). You can easily handle this through your autoresponder – getting it to fill in subscriber’s name in the email addressed to them, as if you are writing the email especially for them. Also, use their name at various appropriate places in the message – like “Did you know, (name)”, as if you are actually speaking with them.

You are aiming to build your lists and simultaneously starting to build a relationship with your list. So when you care enough to personalize the email to them, they will also feel comfortable about approaching you, and building a rapport.

Layout Of The Ezine/Message

Every message starts with a title or subject. If your email is an ezine, give it a catchy name and include the name of the publisher, URL links, issue number, etc. This will inform your recipient about where it is coming from and identify you. Readers like to recognize who it is right away to encourage them to read on further.

Listing The Contents

Can you imagine this ebook without a table of contents and the page numbers of each? Just think about having to search for something without a clear idea of what the ebook contains. The title alone is not sufficient. To enable your reader know exactly what to expect, build a table of contents with a list of everything you have included in your email/ezine, so that they not only find you organized, but find it easy to browse through.

Proofreading

This one is obvious. We can’t ever imagine reading an ezine or email full of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. We form a negative impression of the sender. It looks like they did not bother about what the reader might think. It is always necessary to send out quality content to your prospects. Make sure you check spellings and grammar, or get someone to check them. Send them out only when you are sure they are free of errors. Check every link to see if it works, if you are providing any. It can be annoying to the reading to click through a link, only to find that it does not work because of a simple error in the link. You will just end up losing a member.

Check To See If You Are Spamming

There are certain standards to follow to check whether your message is spam free. Ensure that you are aware of them and do not use keywords classified as spam. This will not only get your messages filtered, but you will reported as spam and spoil your credibility.

Can You Use HTML In Your Emails?

Most ezines offer the option of receiving them as text or email version, according to the receiver’s preference. HTML can make your ezine look very good. But there are email clients who just don’t display these. All that time and effort in creating a jazzy ezine just goes waste. If your subscriber has low Internet bandwidth, they may or may not have the patience to wait till the page loads. What to do? Make both, and give your contacts the option of whether they want HTML or plain text emails. Many people prefer text emails, while some prefer HTML. The advantage of your HTML version is that you can put it on your website and make it look great. You can also give the text version a link to the HTML version – which gives your contacts the choice to click and see. Helps in improving your page ranking as well.

Include A Quote For The Day

It is nice to see a relevant quote by a famous person that is related to the content of the message. This can add to the emphasis on your theme.

Original Content

This is always a plus point. It helps in relationship building. When you write your own original content, your personality just comes through in your words.

Does It Work?

The only way to find out is to try it on yourself. Do this: send the emails to yourself first. Try clicking all the links on a variety of email clients to take care of any possible glitch. After all the hard work, you don’t want your contacts to have a problem reading your email or ezine, do you? Online marketing is all around your optin list. Give it the respect and consideration it deserves.

Top 15 Ways to Build Your Subscriber List

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you offer. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and, if done right, helps build loyalty and trust with customers. As a result, you generate more sales and more profits!

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, permission-based email list. Marketers call contact lists their "goldmine" because it can generate much of their sales revenue. If you've built up a list of opt-in subscribers that are qualified and interested in what you have to offer, then you've completed the first step and are on your way. Now it's time to "mine" for gold!

Below you'll find several list-building and retention ideas that will help you get the best results from all your email marketing activities:

1. Provide useful, relevant content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be of interest or use to them.

2. Add a subscription form to every page on your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If it doesn't look cluttered, you may want to include more than one on some pages. For instance, if your opt-in form always appears in the top-left corner of your site, you may want to add one at the end of your most popular articles.

3. Add subscription forms to your social media pages. Make sure that you don't waste this valuable source of revenue opportunities. Integrate your sign-up forms with Facebook and more!

4. Make it easy for readers to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it's not necessary, don't include it here. You can always survey them once they're customers! We do recommend that you provide a link to your Privacy Policy however.

5. Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form. (Note: If you don't have one, put the words "privacy policy generator" into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form to use.)

6. Provide samples of your newsletters and Ezines. This lets potential subscribers review your materials before they sign up to determine if it's something they'd be interested in.

7. Archive past newsletters and articles. An online library of past newsletters and articles is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can increase traffic to your website through enhanced search engine positioning.

8. Give gifts subscribers can actually use. Offer an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list! Write an ebook or provide a PDF business report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don't limit yourself to offering gifts to opt-ins. Give them out when your readers fill out a survey, provide a testimonial, success story, or a great product idea. Let them know when they can expect the next gift offer. Everyone likes to get something for free! And if you pass out "goodies" throughout the year, your subscribers will feel truly appreciated − and that's good for business!

9. Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find your content interesting, amusing or informative, they'll probably share it with their friends. This can be a great source of new customers, so make sure to remind them to "pass it on".

10. Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. If you're happy to share your content with the universe, then why not! Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you'll get new subscribers, and more traffic and links pointing to your site.

11. Include a "Sign Up" button in your newsletter. If you're using plain text instead of HTML, be sure to provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint them online. Make it easy for them to subscribe!

12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to acquire opt-ins and build your list. Think of it as a mini-sales letter to go along with your subscription or opt-in gift. It should feature a strong headline and a couple of powerful benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up! Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and promote your offer using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now that should make a splash!

13. Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put one or two strong testimonials from satisfied customers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video) is more "believable" and inspires more people to action. To further enhance believability, get permission to use actual customer names, locations and/or urls (Don't use "Bob K, FL"). Add a note inviting others to participate. After all, it's free publicity!

14. Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with prospects and potential customers, and creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.

15. Post on other blogs. Post thoughtful comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in pages. Also comment on others' blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers, and get your brand out there!