Friday, May 25, 2007

Email Marketing Tips For Affiliates

By Christopher Kyalo

Affiliates who make colossal amounts of money online are usually experts at marketing and many are constantly searching for tips via email newsletters and from marketing sites that will dramatically impact on their traffic and affiliate revenues.

If you want to be a successful affiliate, it is not too difficult to pick up email marketing tips and become an expert in this important and effective form of online marketing.

The first of many email marketing tips that you must be aware of is the fact that you must constantly look for ways to trap the email addresses of visitors to your site. It does not matter how few they are, the most important email marketing tips demand that you constantly grow your opt-in email list daily as you are involved with other campaigns. You could offer some valuable information through a special report to all who subscribe to your newsletter and thus leave you with their email addresses.

The way people actively seek clients to buy online is the same way that each site owner should aggressively be harvesting email addresses. It is a email marketing tip worth taking careful note of that a large opt-in email list is better than money in the bank. There are many online entrepreneurs who make a good regular income with nothing else other than their opt-in email lists. Of all email marketing tips you will ever come across, constantly building your opt in email list is the most valuable and powerful.

You will have to combine these tips here with the ultimate bulk email marketing secrets to get explosive results.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Kyalo

Friday, April 13, 2007

Email Marketing - Organic is Better

By Scott Lindsay

Many online businesses look at email marketing as a viable means of directing traffic to their website. Buying lists from a third party can be expensive. This type of email marketing is often viewed as spam because the recipient did not ask to receive the material you sent. Most businesses that use this type of list will work to invite recipients to opt in to future listings with a promise to make this a one-time email unless they actually sign up.

Some ecommerce merchants also use rented lists. This can also be expensive and the list can only be used once. Recipients often have the same feeling about this type of email marketing campaign, which is often viewed as spam.

Organic Email Marketing

This takes longer and is built on a more ‘grass roots’ concept. This type of campaign only relies on those that have already made contact with your business and have willingly provided their email address for future emailings.

This type of ‘opt in’ relies on free membership offers. The visitor willingly provides their contact information in exchange for free membership benefits. This scenario provides a positive means of connection with a more receptive audience.

The good news is the collection of email addresses can be derived from a multitude of sources. If your business receives customer calls you can collect emails by phone. Other possibilities include online web forms as well as tradeshows and other personal contacts.

If you can make it easy to opt in and then provide details in each mailing on how to opt out you will minimize the number of spam complaints your business may receive.

A more organic approach is helpful to the long-term success of your business because it allows you to begin with a smaller group of very interested customers and then continue adding to a list of individuals that places value in what you are sending them.

When you start with a bought or rented list you ultimately wind up in a pronounced adversarial relationship with those who are more interested in keeping spam out of their mailbox than whatever ‘good’ information you might be sending.

It is also a great idea to make sure your valued customers are assured that your email list is not for sale. Provide your recipients with the assurance that no third party will receive their information and that you are concerned about their privacy.

An organic list may be harder to establish, but it is targeting a more relevant group of potential customers who want a reason to trust you. Make sure they find that reason.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites.com at: http://www.highpowersites.com Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scott_Lindsay

Monday, January 29, 2007

Is Email Marketing Dying?

By Sean Kenaston

In 2006, 40% of all email sent throughout the world was considered SPAM. This begs the question, “Will my email get to my subscribers?”

Every day it gets harder to determine if an email is legitimate; users find it difficult to distinguish between legitimate emails and spam. Spammers continue to find clever ways to bypass email filters and as a result the filters increasingly block valid emails in a desperate attempt to keep up. Many marketers find filters frequently catch their commercial emails.

The sheer volume of spam people receive has also created other problems. People will often mistake valid commercial emails, from mailing lists they’ve subscribed to, as spam and thus the email never gets opened. As this trend continues, some experts predict email will no longer be a useful marketing tool.

What can you do to avoid being marked as spam?

The best thing you can do is limit as many factors that may cause your email to be flagged as spam as possible:

* If you’re not doing so already, use a double opt-in mailing list. This will ensure they do in fact want to receive emails from you, plus they will recognize your name, which prevents any emails you send from being mistaken as spam.
* Once a subscriber has signed up to the mailing list, display a message on the website that tells them to add your email address to their white list to prevent it from being flagged as spam.
* Send your email as plain text. Avoid HTML emails as those tend to get picked up by the filters a lot more than plain text.
* Avoid using high threat key words such as ‘Free’, ‘Discount’, ‘Offer’, and ‘Money’ in your subject line as well as the email body. Most spammers these days are smart enough not to use these, but filters will still pick up on them and consider your email suspicious. If you need to use these types of keywords, you can space them out like ‘F r e e’, or include separating characters like ‘O-f-f-e-r’.

Will people abandon email for another electronic medium?

It’s difficult to tell where email marketing will be a year from now. In 2004, Bill Gates predicted there would be an end to all spam by 2006. Well, I don’t need to tell you that the exact opposite has occurred – there is more spam today than ever before, and there is no sign it will be letting up any time soon. It will only continue to get harder to find ways around the problem.

The good news is email marketing has already stood its ground. When blogs and podcasts emerged, many believed they would replace email as the dominant marketing media, but it did not happen. Yes, people embraced blogs and podcasts, but they still subscribed to mailing lists as they had before, despite the spam.

Email is still a strong marketing media and every indication shows that it will remain useful in the years to come. Unless everyone in the world suddenly decides to stop using email, there will always be a way to reach subscribers on the web this way.

About the Author:

Sean Kenaston is an Associate Editor at Ratings Hub - the first and only ad and affiliate link free site that provides 100% user-based reviews of various Internet marketing products and services. It is absolutely free and it’s the only place on the Internet offering completely unbiased feedback on products used by every type of marketer, from beginner to guru and everyone in between. Please visit www.ratingshub.no-nonsense-marketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_Kenaston