List Empire Give Away Rights Ebook

Ebook Sample Content Preview:

Chapter 4: Creating High Quality, Effective E-Mails

Once you've put all that work into creating a mailing list and growing it to include thousands of e-mails, the next step is to actually send out great quality e-mails that your subscribers will actually read and that will help to drive sales. Otherwise, the entire exercise has been pointless.

Writing great quality e-mail copy in many ways is just the same as writing any good content - and all the same rules of engaging and persuasive writing apply. At the same time though, there will also be some considerations that are unique to the format. Let's take a look at both.

Writing Engaging Copy

The goals of your newsletters/e-mails should be the same as the goals of your blog posts. This is content marketing and as such you want to provide real value in your content that builds the trust of your visitors. This means sharing useful and actionable advice in a way that's entertaining - such that they will be more likely to trust you when you deliver your service and that they will be more likely to want to open your next e-mail.

To achieve this, consider the following things:

Tone: The tone of your e-mails is going to depend largely on the nature of your niche/industry and of course a B2B company will use a much more professional tone than a single blogger. With that said, remember that e-mail is the method that most of us use to converse with friends and we generally expect a more conversational tone as a result. Talk as though you're talking to a friend and take advantage of the more personal format of an e-mail versus a blog post. This will help you with building trust too.

Getting to the Point: Most people who are checking their e-mails will be in a hurry. This is just an unfortunate fact of life that you need to take into account when you write your copy. Remember they have a thousand other things they need to be doing and don't have time for your waffle - get to the point quickly, or tease the value of your message early on in the message.

Uniqueness: Top ten posts of the best exercises and great apps have been done to death. If you want people to read your content then you need to offer something that no-one else is offering. Provide exclusive information, in-depth guides, powerful tips and stimulating debate. Remember that these people have asked for more of your content - so give them the VIP treatment and make sure they're getting your very best stuff.

Of course you also need to ensure that your content is well-written, as near-to-error-free as possible and generally effective at showing you in a good light. If you don't consider yourself a good writer then hire someone that is!

Subject Headings

The most important part of your e-mails though is undoubtedly the subject heading. Remember we said earlier that 1/3rd of consumers decide whether or not to read their e-mails based on the subject heading alone - so make yours stand out as compelling.

Now you might be expecting me to list a number of 'tricks' you can use to get people to open their e-mails here. Many bloggers and 'gurus' advise writing subject headings with 'Re:' in the title so that people think they're responses to previous e-mails, others might advocate asking for the reader's 'help' with something.

Do these strategies work in getting people to open e-mails? Sure they do. But they also frustrate and aggravate readers, they damage any trust you've built and they prevent them from opening future e-mails.

So what do you do instead? Simple: you use compelling titles that describe the value of the content within. This is just the same as writing titles for your blog posts. If you can tell your readers what you're offering and why they should listen and if they're genuinely interested in the subject, then they will want to read more.

Note: As a final tip, make sure you are sending your e-mails regularly but not so regularly that you get on everyone's nerves. Try to stick largely to a routine of once a week or once a month and get to the point where your readers are actively looking forward to getting your mails.

Chapter 5: Monetization

Finally, you need to ensure that you're monetizing your mailing list and that it's actually providing a return on investment.

The number one way to do this is by promoting your products and services regularly in each message. Again, most people will ignore that promotion the first and second time but as they come to know you and respect your opinion, they will become increasingly likely to bite.

Of course once you've built this trust there are then tried and tested ways of capitalizing on that work. Here your objective is to motivate your captive audience to go from loyal readers to buyers and this requires a little 'nudge' with perfect timing.

The good news is that once someone has bought from you once, they become much more likely to do so again in the future. The reason for that is that they'll have overcome any uncertainty they have about dealing with you, their details will likely be saved with your checkout system and buying again will require much less of a psychological hurdle as a result.

So how do you give that 'nudge' that will make first time buyers out of your readers?

Calls to Action

The most important factor in your strategy here is your call to action. Each message that you're intending to sell from needs to feature a message at some point which should tell people why they should take action and then make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

An example might sound something like this:

But why wait? Click PRE-ORDER now and you can be among the first to take advantage of this great offer!

Or

See why so many customers choose COMPANY/PRODUCT NAME. Click BUY now and get your hands on this fantastic product!

Removing Barriers to Sale

Included in your call-to-action should be a direct link to your checkout page which should be designed to make it as easy as possible for people to enter their details and secure a purchase.

• File Size:4,037 KB
• License: Giveaway Rights
• Category:Ebooks
• Tags:2015 Ebooks Give Away Rights