5 Email Marketing Myths

By Angela Wills
www.MarketersMojo.com

Page 1 Copyright © 2011
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About The Author

After nine months as a virtual assistant, Angela quit her dead-
end factory job in May of 2007 to work from home full-time. A
true entrepreneur at heart, Angela finds is very rewarding to help
small business owners build their businesses online.

Angela has been featured in two print books, been a guest tech
expert on a local hour-long TV show, featured on numerous
internet events and has worked with hundreds of clients and
customers to build successful online businesses.

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Email Myth #5 – “If I email too much, they’ll unsubscribe!”
This is so untrue! You can email your list a lot and have a list that is happy as a pig in you
know what.

However, let me make this clear: You WILL get unsubscribes, it’s normal and a natural part of
the email process.

Now there’s a trick to this, well it’s not so much a trick as it is common sense. Here is how to
email your list as often as you want without having to worry about ticking them off:

Set Clear Expectations – If you plan to email your list once a day and the occassional twice
per day let them know that. Tell them they’ll be getting a LOT of emails. Obviously you don’t
want to send them garbage so if you’ve got great info and you need to send it once a day
you’re subscribers will be happy to be in the know and on top of the latest news in your topic
or industry. There are plenty of successful businesses that email out all the time.

Offer High Value – As I mentioned in the last point you need to provide value. In order to do
this you need to flip the ‘how can I make the most money?’ mindset to the ‘how can I provide
the most value that leads to goodwill and sales?’ mindset. It might seem like a tiny switch but
it is extremely important to the overall success of your marketing messages.

Don’t Email Garbage – Yep I mentioned this one too and it’s fairly obvious but sometimes
we get roped into promoting offers for people because they’re friends or because they did
something nice for us. You need to be a tough business person here and weed out
everything that’s garbage and then go beyond that. You want to offer ONLY the highest
quality in any offers you make. Whether it be your own products or someone else’s, make
sure it is top-tier standard. AND don’t pound your list with offer after offer after offer! Give
them tools, resources, freebies and other good things so they don’t consider you to be
nothing but a money-hungry scammer.

Understand Their Needs – If you are emailing out ALL the time but you’re totally out of
whack with what your list is looking for then they’re going to unsubscribe. Worse, they’ll
probably label you a spammer before they do (even if you’re not, they can do that). The
smartest thing you can do here is make sure you understand the needs of your list. The
easiest way to do that is to BE your target market.

For example, I teach how to build a website at Website Design Mojo. I don’t only teach it, I
do it. I build websites for my business and also for clients so I’m very much in the loop to the
needs and wants of someone who’s built a website. I do need to stretch, however, when it
comes to understanding what a BEGINNER needs (since it’s been 12 years since I was a
total beginner). That’s when I be careful to listen to my market, ask them questions and go


personally to people for advice. You want to make sure you always understand what your
market needs and deliver that to them.

Those are some ways you can make sure your list is happy to receive emails from you.

You might be reading this, however, and be wondering why in the world you’d want to create
all that work for yourself and email your list so often. Good question, it is.

Look at it this way:

- It takes about 7 marketing messages to make a sale (or so the story goes).
- If you email your list once per week that’s 52 messages per year.
- According to the math that would be only 7 sales per year!!

- Now, up your messages to twice per week and it stands to reason you can expect to you
double your sales. Three times per week and you could possibly triple your sales. Up by five
times and potentially get five times the sales. Get it?

That alone was enough for me to start paying much more attention to how many times I
email out.

Just remember that you’ve got to focus on quality!! If you try to pull money out like your own
virtual ATM machine you’ll find your list quickly grows to resent and ignore you…

For those on your list who are really and completely against getting too many emails – yes,
they will unsubscribe. Guess what? You simply can’t please everyone. I had to come to
terms with that and decide WHO I wanted to please – the people who only want my emails
four times a month or the people who want lots of information from me and are just as happy
with twenty or thirty emails from me per month if the topic requires it.

In the end if you treat your list like the gold it can be they won’t get mad at all. Instead you’ll
have an email list of people who respect your opinions, wait for your advice and take your
consideration recommendations because you’ve proven yourself to be a trusted source of
valuable information.

Good deal, eh?


Email Myth #4 – “Double Opt-Ins Are Bad For Business.”

I got the following question from a client:

Do you use a double opt-in with aweber? I have a very young computer whiz
friend who says that most “internet marketers’ who want to grow big lists don’t use
the double optin feature on aweber.

For those of you who many be new to email marketing, the difference is this:

Single Opt-In- A form on your website that people enter their name and email and are
immediately added to your email list.

Double Opt-In – A form on your website where people enter their name and are
automatically sent an email to confirm that they’ve opted-in. Then, they must click the link in
the email or they don’t get on the list.

A double opt-in is highly recommended due to Can-Spam laws as it provides you protection
against anyone calling you a spammer because you have record of every opt-in. A double
opt-in also prevents spamming bots from filling out your forms and adding people to your list
who didn’t intend to subscribe. A double opt-in also qualifies people on your list, almost
always making it more targeted and responsive because they had to take action to join it.

Now I’m not saying there aren’t benefits to single opt-ins. Obviously you can build a bigger
list, faster.

There are two ways to look at this:

1. I want the biggest list possible and I want to remove ALL stop-blocks that will prevent me
from getting maximum subscribers.

2. I want to build an email list of people who are extremely targeted, interested and
responsive to what I have to offer.

Your first instinct might be to want option #1 and in some cases that’s fine, but I personally
don’t want to ‘do what the gurus do’. Why? Because many of the top internet marketers love
to build massive lists, spam them to death, scam as much money as they can from their
subscribers and then repeat. To me that’s an extremely unfulfilling way to run a business
(and to live a life).

I personally prefer option #2. It’s the option where you offer a double opt-in on your email list.


Let the internet marketers have their ‘huge’ lists of people. I personally prefer my small list of
people who really appreciate my messages and who have stuck around for years to hear
what I have to say.

Tiny lists can outperform big lists.

For example, I tiny list of, say, 100 people can make you thousands of dollars if treated right.
You can built a relationship with those people, you can respond to their questions, you can
make them feel respected and appreciate and you can provide them with products they
need.

Or a huge list of, say, 100,000, could be totally worthless if they are sick of the garbage that’s
getting sent to them day after day. If they’ve gotten trick emails that say “Notification of
Payment Received” or “URGENT – Open NOW!!!!” or some other such tricky nonsense.
You’ll get a tiny percentage conversion on a list you treat like fools, and you’ll also get a bad
reputation.

Let me share with you a really important tip:

The people who will open, read and pay attention to your emails the most are those who
already know, like and trust you. Now you might wonder how you get people to do that, how
do you make them trust you? The answer is simply to provide them with value. If you already
have customers and you have already delivered a highly valuable product or service to them
consider them your LIST. If they are not already in a customer database then it’s time to start
one and invite them to it. Your customers know how awesome you are already, they trust you
and they certainly know you do good stuff. Making them another offer or even a good
recommendation at this point is pretty much a no-brainer to them.

Think about it – how many times have you gotten an offer from a company or an
entrepreneur that you’ve already bought from and you simply click straight to the order
button? I do it all the time. I’ve bought plenty of products online that I never even read the
salespages. I just know if ‘so-and-so’ delivered it then it must be good.

There you have it, that’s my take on the double opt-in, single opt-in debate. I know not
everyone will agree with me on the topic but most of you will surely see my point here – that
it’s more important to build an email list of people ready and willing to hear from you.

THAT’s the kind of email list you want to build if you want a rewarding online business!


Email Myth #3: Social networks are more important than email.

Honestly I’ve not been fast to jump on the ‘social media marketing’ bandwagon. In fact, I still
use my Facebook account for personal use only and I’ve even gone so far as to cancel my
account at one point.

Why? Because sometimes I just can’t shut up!

When I get sites like Facebook, Twitter, MSN and, if we go wayyy back, ICQ (remember that
chat program with the ‘uh-oh!’ notifications?) I can spend hours upon hours upon hours
chatting aimlessly away.

And facebook – oh boy! You can spend hours just browsing through pictures, reading
statuses, starting conversations or chatting with your friends.

Yes this IS relationship building. What is usually ISN’T is the most productive use of the
limited time we all have available in a day. You can only say ‘but you can’t measure ROI on
relationships’ before you go broke, right?

So, yes, I’m still on facebook (I have a fanpage here <-- Like Me! ). And, yes, I do enjoy
being social. And, yes, I think social media has it’s place but it’s no where near in the same
category as having a highly responsive, targeted email list.

Let’s do up a little comparison chart, shall we?

Email Facebook, Twitter and
Marketing the Like...
Does your message get delivered in a private
YES NO
manner, personalized to the recepient?
Can you track your clicks, opens and sales? YES NO
Can you get instant feedback from your market? NO YES
Are users generally open to marketing messages
YES NO
via this format?
Are you limited in the amount you can write in one
YES NO
message?

A note on some of the points in that list (and some not on the list):


Messages Delivered - When you use email marketing and you use a good program like
Aweber to deliver your emails you are pretty-much guaranteed that your targeted people will
lay eyes on it. Even if they delete your email without opening they saw who it was from and
you got branding exposure. With social media sites such as facebook and twitter you never
know who is actually reading your messages.

Trackable – I know the social media experts out there will be screaming out “IT’S NOT
ABOUT RETURN ON INVESTMENT!!!’ but I disagree. It’s important to know if what you are
doing is working and if you have no way to track it you really won’t know if your time is
completely wasted or if it’s being invested in the right places. Email allows you to track clicks,
opens and even sales – social media does not.

Instant Feedback – One of the things social media does well is giving you feedback from
your market in a matter of minutes. Usually email is much slower in this regard and often
people just don’t take the time to email back. Tweets and facebook posts are easier to
respond to quickly.

Mindset – You’ve really got to consider the mindset of the user in each setting. When you go
to your email you expect more ‘professional’ messages, including emails from vendors who
sell you stuff. It’s generally quite acceptable to send marketing messages via email and
subscribers are open to this as long as you provide value. By contrast, facebook was created
for college students to socialize. One social media site that is an exception is LinkedIn as it
was established with the intention to be a social network for professionals so the mindset of
the network is very different from the site designed to be a place to look for hot chicks.

Restricted – With email you are not limited to a certain number of characters but on many
social networks you are.

Social Media is GOOD, Email is GREAT!

I’m not trying to talk you out of using social networking or social media, at all. In fact I highly
recommend you include it in your overall marketing plan because it can deliver good results
if done without wasting the day away. What I am suggesting is that you think twice about
giving social networking priority over email marketing on your list of things to do.


Email Myth #2 – The Money Is In The List!

The saying really should go…

“The Money Is In The Relationship You Build With The Highly Targeted, Frequently
Contacted List Who Trusts YOU.”

Not quite as sexy, is it?

What I wanted to talk about in this article is how this saying can be misleading and cause
you to put a lot of effort in the wrong places.

Let’s start with a list of ideas on HOW you can build your email list:

1. Add an Opt-In form to Your Website. (I use Aweber for easy form templates)

2. Buy ads and send them to your Opt-In Form.

3. Use Article Marketing to direct people to your form.

4. Host teleseminars or webinars.

5. Link to your Opt-In form from social media sites.

6. Get affiliates to promote your list.

7. Get listed on newsletter directory websites.

How NOT to Build Your Email List:

• Don’t Buy Leads – Please don’t ever buy email leads and add them to your email list –
it’s against the law. To build your email list you need to have the permission of each
and every subscriber.
• Don’t Add Them – Some people have the assumption that if they got a business card
from, or networked in some way with a person then they have the right to add them to
their email list. This is just not true and it’s also considered spam.
• Don’t Trick Them – Don’t promise something you can’t deliver. Also don’t trick them
into thinking they are getting a single freebie when you intend on sending them the
freebie, and, a whole bunch of marketing messages.

Honestly when I got serious about building my own lists I plowed forward believing the


money was in the list and I just needed to build a big list to get responses. What I figured out
what that a list of ‘freebie seekers’ tends to have a very low conversion rate. Meaning, for
every 100 people I email out to my freebie lists I usually get 1 or less responding. Not quite
‘raking in the cash’ as the saying promises, is it?

Let me add a little sidenote here: You might here something completely different from people
who teach how to pull stashes of cash from unsuspecting customers. You might here people
tell you to build up your email list really fast, start making really amazing offers your market
just can’t refuse (you know, the ‘too good to be true’ kind?) and pound them with offer after
offer until they’re worn right out. That’s NOT the kind of list I’m talking about here.

The kind of list I’m talking about is the one you’d be proud to have your mama on. Actually,
come to think of it, that’s a really good gauge of what to send your list… ask yourself “Would
I send this to my mom if she were interested in this topic? If the answer is no, don’t send it!”

From my own experience I’ve learned that my most responsive lists are my customers. A
customer list is not any ol’ list and you can’t get it just anywhere. You must build the
relationships with them and deliver great quality, consistently. Once you do that you can
actually get a great conversion from your list because they now know, like and trust you. I’ve
seen conversions of 16 – 30% on my customer emails.

At the end of the day your email list is an extremely important asset to your online business.
You must treat it as an investment to be carefully tended to and nurtured. Allow time to let
relationships grow, keep working at providing content and you should be able to find a
fulfilling business while also turning a profit from that list.


Email Myth #1: But I Don’t Need an Email List (or It Won’t Work
For Me)!
True or False? —-> Only ‘internet marketers’ need email lists.

Your answer is FALSE!

If you are in business, an email list can do you good. Now let me add a caveat to this that
any business can certainly get along and make a profit without an email list, but, they can
always make more with a properly positioned email marketing campaign.

In today’s article I’m going to share with you some of the reasons why I believe every
business, whether physical product or service provider or internet marketer, is better off
WITH an email list than WITHOUT one.

So let’s get right to it.

Reason #1: Announcements

Your business does new stuff every now and then, right? Maybe it’s a new product, a new
service or a new website. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to tell a lot of people all at once
rather than launching something and having to one by one reach your market? Also, maybe
you’ve got a free event to invite your market to, or a contest you’d like them to participate in.
Having a list allows you to quickly reach your market and get a fast response, too.

Reason #2: Customer Follow-Up

Even if you don’t start a ‘freebie’ email list you should definitely have a ‘customer’ list. This is
a list where you can follow up on products, add bonuses and check in with your customers
on a mass level to make sure the product is exactly what they expected. The automation
here will save you time AND money. You can greatly reduce or even eliminate customer
service issues when you get ahead of the game by anticipating problems before they occur.

Here’s a good example: I sell many information products and coaching programs. My
shopping cart process includes my new customers ‘confirming’ their customer status so they
can get on my product-specific customer lists. As a way to prevent any customer from
missing their download information I have an autoresponder set up to ask them if they got
their download information ok. Many people think this is a personal email and respond
accordingly. So the results are two-fold – 1) Customer appreciation for going above a typical
marketer, 2) Preventing download issues before they happen.


Reason #3 – Less ‘Hours-For-Dollars’, More Money

Service providers work damn hard! A few years ago when my only means of income for my
online business was clients I was seriously STRESSED-OUT. I worked all day long for clients
and it drained my emotionally and physically. Now I’m not saying that you can’t have a
rewarding service business, what I am saying is that if you are not careful it can quickly take
over your life.

Enter email marketing. I knew I didn’t want the business I had created so I focused my efforts
on building income that relied less on one-time labour. Instead, I started creating information
products that served the same market and I started letting my clients and others know about
the products that could help them build their businesses. I am still serving the same market
these days, just on a bigger level because I can reach thousands (and do) with my email list.
I could never work personally with thousands of clients in a week or even a month!

So there you have three very good reasons why an email list is a smart move for ANY
business owner.

Before I let you go, I want to address something you might be thinking right now…

“Ok, an email list is a good idea, but I really can’t afford it right now”.

Aweber costs only $1 for a one month trial. Then it's $20 to get started. Now that adds up to
about $240 in a year if your list is less than 500 subscribers. Think about this really logically,
ok? If you build your list and start using it properly you should make every penny of that back
many, many, many times over. I make a full time living online and it has a whole lot to do with
the fact that I have an email list.

An email management software program such as Aweber is an investment in your business,
and, in my opinion it's a totally non-negotiable one. I'm going to tell you honestly that if you
can't invest that much in your success then you probably don't believe in what you're doing.
If you don't believe in what you're doing then it's probably time to do something else.

So – what are you waiting for?! Start with the $1 – Get Aweber and then go build a great list
of people who are READY to hear the messages only YOU can deliver!

Click the link or graphic below to sign up now:
http://marketersmojo.aweber.com


5 Email Marketing Myths

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