E-Biz Booster Blog

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of email marketing tips on March 23rd, 2010.

This is the first edition of my email marketing tips blog carnival this year. I have hand-picked all entries myself and hope that I will get useful blog article submissions to the next edition.

By the way: Here is the complete archive with highlight of the best contributions with useful email marketing tips.

Today’s categories:

• copywriting
• general tips
• practical tips

Browsing Tip: If not stated otherwise all links in this email marketing tips carnival edition will open in this window. Use the back button of your browser to come back here or open links in a new window or tab.

copywriting

Sonia Simone wrote The Betty Crocker Secret to Email Marketing that Works posted at Copyblogger, saying, “You’ve heard it a thousand times: the money’s in the list. If you’re serious about getting results online, you need to build a list of people who are paying attention to you, typically an email list.”

John’s comment: A must read article! I only have one objection: “The money is not in the list! It’s in the relationship with the list.”

Doberman Dan wrote David Deutsch’s Advice To Copywriters posted at Doberman Dan - Direct Response Entrepreneur, saying, “At John Carlton’s Action Seminar David Deutsch shared several life-changing pieces of advice with me. David is one of the handful of top “A list” copywriters… the very best hired guns who write for the HUGE direct response companies like Boardroom, Agora, Rodale and Phillips.”

John’s comment: With that tip you actually can earn while you learn. Doesn’t matter if you get started with direct mail or you simply start to build an list of your own.

general tips

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Okay, here is the post I procrastinated for a long, l o o o … o o n g time.

Please, don’t ask me, why I finally got moving and finished it today. It’s certainly not the sunshine and beach weather that prevented me from doing this earlier. If it were, I wouldn’t get anything done at all. We have dream weather here a lot.

However, if you insist asking, I will respond,

“It was Frank Kern. He is guilty of having me finish that post.”

You might or might not know who Frank Kern is. He is one of the most successful email copywriters and business strategists in the Internet marketing community. Many call him a guru. Last week Frank launched his latest product, an interactive e-mail list building training program. The launch strategy was interesting to watch. It gives us a hint regarding the very old question:

“Single Opt-in or double opt-in?”

But first things first.

E-mail solution providers and to some extent law makers… → Continue reading:

The Internet Marketing Arena was held hostage by Frank Kern, who was launching his latest product,

L I S T C O N T R O L
(offer expired!)

last week.

‘LISTCONTROL’ is a one month interactive video training program for people who want to start an online business.

The course has a strong focus on email marketing and relationship building.

I made a quick teaser video about the launch.

At the $1,997.00 price point it’s not an inexpensive program, but at first Frank Kern has a great reputation, secondly the buyer is protected with a rock-solid money back guarantee, and thirdly Frank addresses issues most beginners get stuck with in other courses, ebooks, and trainings.

In a live interview with video marketer and co-founder of Traffic Geyser (↑), Mike Koenigs, Frank said

[…] Listcontrol particularly covers beginner questions in module 1. […]

Something his famous and legendary product Masscontrol (fall of 2008 and 2009) did not teach that directly. But Listcontrol wouldn’t be a course by Frank Kern if very advanced topics weren’t covered. And this starts with content syndication in module 1 which is something beginners don’t need to worry about, but advanced folks will love to implement right away.

Major marketers in the Internet Marketing Community Promoted Frank’s launch

Such a launch stirs up the pot and while Frank’s affiliates feed the frenzy, others condemn such product launches altogether. There are usually three groups of people. Wait, really it’s four.

• buyers
• almost buyers
• non-buyers
• those who don’t notice the launch at all

It’s usually the non-buyers who loudly protest against that sort of product launches.

However, there are two critical facts to consider:

• Launches work for many reasons (enough stories for another post.)
• The largest group is people who don’t notice the launch at all. (6 Billion people or so; a product launch is very targeted and not a spam campaign.)

As usual with Frank — techniques get refined — this launch is different. I don’t have any accurate figures on the metrics, and I know Frank Kern would not talk about specifics before the refund period is over anyway.

… therefore, just a few comments from me as they came to my mind during the last couple of days.

Observations About The Listcontrol Product Launch

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I joined the discussion on Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian’s blog quite late, but since I gave it some thought, I decided to share my response with you.

In mid November last year Dr. Mani published a list with his predictions about what will be IN and what will be OUT in 2010 (↑).

The first item on his list

1.) Email Is OUT, Social Media Is IN

I am buying the second part of his statement immediately, but “Email OUT”?

I had to think about it a couple of seconds longer than usual, ’cause a couple of respectable experts like Chris Brogan (↑), Warren Whitlock (↑), and Willie Crawford (↑) already had left comments on Dr. Mani’s blog post.

Here is the re-print of my reply:

I don’t think email is OUT in 2010.

I rather would say, we have to use and nurture email marketing differently than in the past.

A strong email list is still an asset, like your website. I hope you have purchased your own domain.

Who owns—and most importantly who has jurisdiction so to speak over—your social media profile?

The inherent benefit of email is it’s independence from any given email marketing service provider on the sender side. Maybe the Google Wave protocol will push email type communication into this century and at a same time allow a merger with social media. I am looking forward to it. Maybe in 2011, 2012.

What’s the deal with email marketing in 2010?

You would be crazy to stop building an email list. But on the same token you would be insane not building your social media presence.

In case you are sitting on the fence and don’t know whether you should put the subject email marketing into the IN or the OUT bucket. Think about why businesses are complaining. You hear two main reasons:

• Low open and response rates resulting in less sales.
  
  
• Deliverability problems.

Now ask yourself or your team a couple of questions and revisit the response rate issue. For sure you will find a couple of areas where you can improve.

• Is my aging email list outgrowing my content, my offers?
  
  
• Do my offers mature in-sync with my subscribers?
  
  
• Am I (trying to) milk my members or am I graduating them?
  
  
• Does my offer evolve over time and stay fresh and state-of-the-art that it appeals to new subscribers as well.
  
  
• And now probably the most important question: Am I sending brochures, pitches, or am I building a relationship with that person who reads my email message. (Hint: Even outside of internet marketing consumers already can smell automated follow-up messages.)

One kind of email marketing campaigns did especially well in 2009. It’s called customer reactivation. But that is just one tactic that worked.

Maybe your email marketing activities need that sort of a botox treatment. (LoL)

Lots to think about.

Don’t dump your e-mail opt-in box, yet.


Yours
John W. Furst

P.S.: [Admittedly I have procrastinated (check out the edutaining video) with this blog post for some time.]

I joined the discussion on Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian’s blog quite late, but since I gave it some thought, I decided to share my response with you.

In mid November last year Internet infopreneur, author and social entrepreneur Dr. Mani published a list with his predictions about what’s IN and what’s OUT in 2010 (↑).

The first item on his list:

Email Is OUT, Social Media Is IN

I am buying the second part of his statement immediately, but “Email OUT?”

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I have the feeling that I will write another post very soon. Therefore, I keep this one extra short.

How many emails do you receive each day?

Let’s cut out spam and probably transactional emails like New Subscriber, New Comment, …

I’ll usually get up to 100 a day. However, there are still individual emails that I am looking forward to with great anticipation.

Last Sunday was such a day.

I got up knowing I should receive an important email. But nothing. Not at 9am, not at 10am, 11am, … It simply didn’t find its way into my inbox or the spam folder. It actually has not been sent before Monday as I learned later.

As insignificant as this episode might be, it taught me and other marketers with whom I have discussed this an important lesson.

I really felt disappointed; Actually already had made plans to deal with the subject matter. (I know. It was Sunday. So what.)

As I see now, strangely enough, it did not come to my mind to simply grab the phone, or write an email to the source saying,

“What’s up? Weren’t you supposed to send me something?”

Sure that would have been a smart thing to do. Probably I am not that smart. But I bet your customers or members of your email list aren’t that smart either. Let me rephrase that: Just do not assume that they are that smart or even care.

Here Comes The Lesson

That’s actually a dream come true for anybody who is going through the effort of building a permission based email list when your members can’t wait to get your next message.
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