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How To Build A Sales Pitch Into Your Webinars
How To Build A Sales Pitch Into Your Webinars
Are you presenting a product or service to a potential client or an audience of potential clients?
The main point of any sales presentation is to make the sale, but the focus of the presentation is the audience.
How can you accomplish both in one shot? We are going to give you a few hints in that area.
Sell, Sell, Sell!
When salesmen have quotas, the customer can become lost in the sauce. Remember door-to-door salesmen? They didn’t have PowerPoint presentations or big event halls with a stage to speak to their prospective clients.
They honed a few basic skills that made the sale for them. As a business owner or a manager for a company, knowing the importance of new business as well as the importance of client needs can translate into sales with the right formula.
Being prepared for anything (even big fat Nos) actually makes your job a lot smoother and simpler. Sometimes it isn’t what you know but how you convey what you know to your target audience.
Building Your Presentation Around Your Sales Pitch
If you want to make the sale, you need to catch the attention and emotion of the customer from the first word, picture, or slide.
* Do your homework – The key to engaging a customer is to know who they are. What do they need that your product can provide? What are their immediate needs? Who else has the potential to meet those needs? It is not inappropriate to ask a potential client or customer some questions that would help you prepare for them. But, you will have to do some digging on your own as well to get what you need.
* Know your product – What aspects of your product’s capabilities speak to the needs of the client or customer? This is how you tailor a presentation to the specific need of the audience. Choose one feature that can solve the issue they are currently having and use that as the topic of your presentation.
* Make the presentation about the customer – When you begin by discussing your company or product, the talk focuses on you. Instead, use words and imagery to show the benefits of the product to customers. It’s all about meeting their needs, not your revenue.
* Tell a story – It goes without saying that it needs to be a relevant story. Relay a time when your product was used by a past customer, and the positive outcomes. Choose a story whose outcomes are also the desires of the current audience. Show empathy towards your audience.
* Listen to the customer – Ask questions and wait for the response. Show that you are listening. Move your presentation in a direction that highlights the need expressed in their responses.
* Don’t forget the call to action – The deal is not sealed until you tell the audience what you want them to do. Some will say yes right away, and others will need time. Create a follow-up strategy to keep them interested until they say yes.
On the part of the customer, a good sales pitch will instil confidence in your ability to meet their needs.
Do’s And Don’ts Of Selling Your Products During Your Webinar
There are four P’s of marketing: Product, place, price, and promotion. Using this marketing mix will result in a much better result than just focusing on one thing.
Today, one of the ways in which you can market your business is to host webinars and a solid webinar marketing strategy should be a part of any online business.
There are a number of webinar platforms including GoToWebinar, WebinarJam, Demio and EasyWebinar and there has been a rise in popularity of Zoom webinar due to the increase in working from home.
But remember that there is a difference between promotion and marketing. Marketing encompasses all the different aspects of marketing, whereas promotion is just one aspect.
If you want to know more about using webinars, check out this free training here
Here’s how you can promote and sell your products during your webinar without making it too sales focused.
* Create a Short Informative Sign-Up Page – One way to promote products to your audience is to promote on the backend, and the way you do that is to collect email address information when your audience signs up for your webinar. Your title should be compelling and explain exactly what the webinar will provide to your audience.
* Get the Format Down for the Webinar – Your personal story should be first, no more than five or ten minutes. If you tell a story that shows how you overcame an obstacle, it will humanize you for your audience and open their hearts to your message.
Deliver useful, relevant, and actionable content for the next 20 minutes, teasing them about the offer you’ll be making to them later. Finally, offer fast action bonuses for people who act now on your offer, and don’t apologize for making the offer. You’re helping them and they deserve to hear your offer.
* Add Scarcity to Your Offer – You can’t make the offer too open ended, or people will sit on it and wait and maybe never act. Give them a time limit but include a lot of value in the offer, such as a special breakout Q & A session for fast acting buyers happening just a few days from now. That will help your audience make their decision.
* Describe the Products Completely – Proudly explain what they will get when they buy your product, including all the benefits available to them and the fast action bonuses too. This is your “sales page”, and you want to give them everything, including overcoming any objections they might have to buying.
* Send Buyers Directly to Checkout Page – When you’ve already made the offer and pitch, don’t send them to another sales page during the webinar. Instead, send them to a checkout page so that it’s faster and they will buy right then instead of reading the sales page again. You’ve already told them the benefits, they’re clicking to buy, and they want to buy. Don’t interfere with that.
* Follow Up – You’d be shocked at how many people give many webinars and do not follow up with their audience after the event. Most of your sales are likely to happen in the days after the webinar. You may have one or two who take advantage of the fast action bonuses, but you’ll have more buy after the event if you follow up.
Send a recording of the event; write up a post using the questions received during the event. Find ways to follow up and continue the conversation.
Webinars are one of the best forms of marketing that your business has ever seen. But they only work if you learn how to do them correctly, by not being afraid to make your offer in a real, genuine way to the audience. If you’ve given them a lot of great free content and whetted their appetite well enough, they’ll be relieved to get the offer.
Any type of webinar or sales presentation relies on good sales copy and there are many pitfalls and mistakes that inexperienced copywriters can make. If you want to know more about avoiding these and other copywriting mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned and can make your copy more effective. Download, read it and take action 😊
Outsource To Better Efficiency
Outsource To Better Efficiency
Humans are lousy multitaskers. Too many people claim to be great at it, but the truth is they are not. They are fooling themselves. If they take on too many tasks, the result is they either don’t get anything done, or they have to cut corners in an attempt to get everything done.
Buddhists believe you should concentrate all your efforts on one task and become great at it. You will do it better than everyone else. It doesn’t matter what the task is or how small. Just do your best to get it done using all of your efforts.
There is a way, however, to multitask that will lead to efficiency gains. You can outsource some of your tasks. Outsourcing has exploded onto the scene in the past decade and is a great way to leverage your time.
You can get multiple tasks completed in a fraction of the time and depending on the quality of the outsourcers, it will be done correctly.
The good news is you can be selective on who you choose for your outsourcing. If one doesn’t work out, you simply ask them to correct their mistakes, or you don’t use them again. When you find a great team of outsourcers, you become an unstoppable force.
More companies are adopting the approach of outsourcing. Many companies are outsourcing entire departments where this makes sense. Why fund a credit department when there is a company that can do it for you?
The same is true for payroll, IT, and a host of other company functions. You don’t worry about salaries or benefits when you do this. You simply pay a fee for services based on your agreement with them.
Depending on the size of your company and the services that you are outsourcing, you can save a significant amount of money when you do this.
Some companies are even allowing their employees to outsource portions of their duties, where it makes sense to do this. For instance, web programmers are not typically known to be good designers. The company either doesn’t have a graphic design department or the group is booked solid with work for other groups. Outsourcing the design can solve this dilemma and give the project the right look and feel.
Of course, you will need to manage the outsourcers, and that often includes getting the specifications right for what you want to be accomplished. But, this is a skill like any other and is something you will get better with over time.
Can Efficiency Experts Help Your Business?
You read that being more efficient will make your company more competitive. That seems to make sense, at least from a theoretical perspective.
You accept the premise and decide to hire an efficiency expert to evaluate and recommend improvements to your business.
It seems like the right thing to do, but how do you go about finding experts who are qualified? This activity seems as though it can contain subjective judgments.
If you are not familiar with what efficient measures are, you are at the mercy of the expert. This is true with most experts in any field. However, efficiency experts are likely to be expensive.
The first step when considering any candidate is to get some information about them. This could take a bit of detective work. It may require you to reach out to other companies who have used the candidates and are satisfied with their results.
This may be easier said than done as many businesses remain tight-lipped about services or companies they use to improve their operations. They either want you to believe they didn’t hire anyone, or they don’t want you to have access to the same people who helped them. Thus, they simply won’t respond to your inquiries.
At the very least, find out how long the company you are considering has been in business. Is the company new? If so, this won’t give you confidence in the company’s experience. When you find companies who have been around for a while, ask them about any special licensing they can show you or high-level certifications they have obtained. Try to find out if these credentials are common for this type of service.
Try to gather up as much information as you can online. If there are complaints, you can be certain you’ll find them via search. If there are only a few complaints, it could be competitors who are bashing the company for the sake of keeping them from getting sales.
However, if there are many complaints, this could be a good indication to stay clear away from the company.
You want to be able to measure significant efficiency improvements with any expert you decide to use. Make sure you are comfortable with what constitutes improvement and insist on guarantees.
As mentioned, this service is going to be expensive, so you need to be able to recapture the costs through successful implementation of his or her advice.
Does Your Company Need A Silo Coordinator?
Do you know what a silo coordinator is? You probably don’t because it’s a made-up title. However, this doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be considered as a job for many companies.
It’s likely the company you work for, is divided into departments or what is sometimes referred to as silos. Departments become autonomous over time.
This can be a problem when departments need to depend on each other to get their jobs done.
A silo coordinator, for lack of a better term, could help bridge the gap between the autonomy that exists within groups. Without one, groups are left to their own vices when trying to use the services of other departments.
While groups manage to get by coordinating activities with other groups, problems can slow the process down, which makes an organization less efficient. For example, what happens when a department with critical resources is booked up and unavailable?
Other groups may complain to their respective managers, but those managers don’t have much pull in helping resolve the situation.
Enter silo coordinators. They can step in and bring up these types of issues to upper management. They will already have relationships with these higher managers, and they will be expected to reach out whenever needed. They won’t be accused of going over the heads of departments because that is their job.
When there are conflicts and problems between groups, the coordinators will step in and try to mediate the situation. After hearing all sides of the arguments, they can come up with a solution that can help move the groups forward.
Companies will need to give authority to these coordinators. Otherwise, they become figureheads who will only serve to placate the groups. This makes the entire concept of coordination fail.
If they don’t have the power, they simply are another layer of management that gets in the way of the process.
It’s probably a good idea to have multiple silo coordinators so that favoritism of groups doesn’t become a problem or at least it doesn’t become prevalent. Of course, you don’t want too many coordinators as this can slow down the process as well.
Companies should probably work on coming up with better structures than silos and departments. However, because that’s the way it’s been done for a long time, this is not something that is likely to happen soon.
Until it does, silo coordinators can be a great way to manage these silos so that companies can progress.
Well, there is a lot more to be learnt about outsourcing for efficiency; far more than can be covered in this short post, but if you’d like to know more about this, then click on the featured resource below where you can pick up a free report that covers this topic in more detail. Download it, read it and take action 🙂
Is Affiliate Marketing Good For Beginners?
Is Affiliate Marketing Good For Beginners?
There are so many things to learn in the world of online marketing. Beginners can easily become overwhelmed by all of the various business models, tools, and courses they can learn from and implement.
Affiliate marketing is perfect for beginners to embrace because it cuts down on the learning curve substantially. Instead of having to learn everything about online marketing from a soup to nuts perspective, you can simply chop off the product creation elements and pick up with the post-creation promo strategies.
All you need is to find an offer with a good affiliate program. And there are many affiliate platforms in many niches; what about the Amazon affiliate program, or for more digital products, what about Warrior Plus, Clickbank or JVZoo?
You can get started without a website; you simply need your affiliate links to the offer(s) you are promoting. This is a big blessing to many beginner affiliate marketers who want to set up some promotions, but don’t yet know the ins and outs of domains, hosting and blog setup details.
You don’t need to learn product creation skills. The hassle of product development, automated delivery to the customer, and subsequent customer service issues is very draining to someone who is a beginner online.
You will need to learn niche research skills. If you choose a niche that you enjoy or are passionate about, it will make the niche research portion very enjoyable. You’ll want to tackle this aspect of affiliate marketing like an adventure – where you’re always discovering new information and sharing it with your audience.
You’ll want to understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if you have a site of your own. Some affiliates do start out with their $10 or so domain and under $10 a month hosting account – just so they won’t have to do this step later.
When you start out this way, or really even if you’re using free platforms, you’ll want to learn the very basic steps associated with SEO. That means understanding keywords and using them in your content creation to attract the right people to your affiliate offers.
Mastering the art of reviews will serve you well as an affiliate. Forget about being a professional writer. Just being casual in your conversations online is what helps buyers trust you and be willing to part with their money.
Beginners do very well in affiliate marketing if they keep their ethics intact. Sometimes, desperation for a quick income can cause you to compromise your beliefs. But if you do that, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot because you’ll be building a reputation as a scammer instead of a leader.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help as an affiliate whenever you get stuck. There are many people online who are willing to explain things and hold your hand through the newbie stage of affiliate marketing.
Ongoing Affiliate Marketing Training
Learning affiliate marketing is not something that happens after you read one blog post, or buy one course, or absorb and implement a video tutorial. It’s an on-going process that evolves over time.
You want to think of affiliate marketing as a continuing education system where you’re always learning, always bettering, and always improving your conversion rates. And that will help your earnings soar.
Learn from a wide variety of people. Yes, over time you’ll have your favorite teachers to learn from – but it’s important t see what kind of golden nuggets other instructors can share that might resonate well with you.
Tackle different styles of affiliate marketing. If you’re only in tangible marketing, why not try to learn how to add digital affiliate marketing to the mix – or vice versa? Or if you’re only using Amazon, why not figure out how to add Commission Junction?
Learn how to advance and tweak your strategies. Never just stick with a beginner’s mindset. You want to learn how to really click with your visitors. So let’s say you feel like you know how to write a product review.
You might be doing just fine with it. But wouldn’t you like to add more conversions, regardless? Who wouldn’t? So learn about how to connect with customers, how to build trust with an audience, and so on. Really expand your learning process to the outer edges.
Test the results of more than one method. Don’t stick with making comparison tables in blog post after blog post – even if it’s working for you. Branch out and learn other methods, like top 10 lists for example.
Understand that the web changes. What may have worked to get you traffic and sales two years ago could be highly obsolete today. You want to keep your pulse on the market and see how trends have evolved.
When video marketing hit the scene, it was an incredible edge some affiliates had over their text-only affiliate competitors because they were able to build trust quickly and easily – and reach more prospects because of YouTube.
Try to invest in several different styles of teaching. A downloadable course is one method. But have you looked into affiliate marketing memberships where you can interact with other affiliates and share strategies?
Or how about paying for a few sessions with an affiliate marketing mentor or coach? That way they could specifically analyze your efforts and help you make headway with your promotions and profits.
Evaluating Info Products For Possible Promotions
If you’re an affiliate marketer who wants to promote digital information products for a commission, then you have to go about it carefully if you want the highest conversion rate with the least amount of refunds.
You want to protect your blog readers and list subscribers from making a worthless purchase, so evaluating the products and reviewing them the right way is important. There are three things you can do to get good results.
Dig around into the product seller’s reputation. Before you buy, you want to know whether the product owner is one of the good guys, or one of the shady marketers.
Sending your customers to buy from someone who doesn’t practice ethics is like sending a lamb to slaughter. They trust you. So make sure you’re looking out for them.
Don’t just read the sales copy to see how you feel about this seller, start digging around online. Look at things like IM Report Card and various forums where anyone has reviewed one of their past products.
If they’re engaging in forums or on their blog, make sure you look to see how they treat people and how they act. Are they someone you’d want to send a good friend or family member to learn from?
You might even test the waters yourself by emailing the marketer to ask a question. How they handle customer service issues could affect your decision on whether or not to promote their products.
Don’t ask for a review copy – buy the product. Sometimes, getting a review copy can make some affiliates feel like they’re obligated to say good things about the product. You want to give an unbiased review, so buying it frees up your conscience.
Another reason to buy it is so that you can go through the process and share what it was like to your readers. Did you encounter any upsells, downsells or one time offers? Did you get immediate access to the product after paying?
Do an implementation review, not just a sales copy review. Too many affiliates simply read the sales copy and report on what the product is. If you want better conversions, then you need to put the product to the test!
Start by reviewing why you decided to buy this product, what you did or didn’t like about the sales copy and buying process, and then share your experience (not the product details) on what it was like to use the product for your own business.
If you want to know more affiliate marketing, then check out the featured resource below for a free Affiliate Marketing Machine report which complements this post perfectly; download, read it and take action 😊
How To Act In Spite Of Your Fear
How To Act In Spite Of Fear
What makes successful people different to others? In all honesty there are a number of factors, but a lot of it boils down to taking action that others aren’t prepared to take.
And why don’t people take action? At the root of it is fear and this can manifest in a number of ways.
Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being judged and even fear of success holds many people back from achieving their true potential and this is so sad.
How do you overcome fear and take action anyway? Well, hopefully this article will give you some pointers to take action when you are scared and to help you overcome self-doubt.
Taking Action Even When You’re Scared To Death
Fear is a normal emotion. Sometimes, it can be beneficial because it makes you aware of risks, keeps you alert, and improves mental focus.
However, too much fear will have the opposite effect. Don’t fret as even the most successful people experience this feeling.
The key is to prevent it from dictating your actions.
The Many Shades OF Fear
This human emotion isn’t all black and white. Fear can take many forms, from mild anxiety to downright debilitating overthinking. Under certain circumstances, it can protect you from danger and stop impulsive behaviors.
But, because it’s closely tied into your gut instinct, it can also help you improve your decision making.
But not all types of fear are good for you. In fact, this emotion often does more harm than good. It can keep you from reaching your full potential, fuel procrastination, and cause stress.
Let’s say you want to quit your 9-to-5 job and start a creative agency or work as a freelance web designer. You might be afraid that you’ll lose time and money if things don’t work out as you planned. What if you won’t have enough clients? Or what if you get sick and can’t work anymore?
The risks are real, so it’s normal to experience fear. However, you’ll never know what you’re missing if you don’t try. Who knows? You might have a huge success and build a loyal customer base.
Five years from now on, you could have enough money to buy the home of your dreams. Do you want to live your life wondering What if?
How To Conquer Your Fear
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to get rid of fear completely. Instead, you should make it your ally.
Picture yourself reaching your goal, whatever it is. Imagine the worst-case scenario and then come up with a backup plan.
Ask yourself: what are the facts? Am I making assumptions? What’s the best thing that can happen? Who can I call for help?
Use your fear as a source of guidance. Assess your inner fears and seek possible solutions. Using our example above, you could start a web design side hustle in addition to your regular job.
This way, if your business fails, you’ll still have an income. If it keeps growing, turn it into a full-time job. With this approach, you’ll get to do what you want and mitigate risks.
6 Tips For Getting A Grip On Self-Doubt
Did you know that a whopping 85 percent of people have low-esteem? This issue affects their personal and professional lives, including their careers, their health, and their salaries.
In other words, self-doubt and low self-esteem can keep you from reaching your peak potential.
These personality traits appear to be more common among women. They develop in childhood and either exacerbate or diminish with time.
If self-doubt plagues you, check out these tips to boost your confidence and trust yourself more:
Accept Yourself
Self-doubt is part of being human. Embrace it and turn it into a strength. When used correctly, this personality trait can help you make better decisions, instead of rushing things.
Think of it as a tool that guides your actions and keeps you from making costly mistakes.
Just make sure you don’t overuse it though because self-doubt can also make you question your sanity and decision-making abilities.
Know You’re Not Alone
Even the most successful people have doubts. They often question their actions and wonder what the right thing to do is.
Focus on building your confidence and self-esteem.
You might never get rid of doubts, but you can stop them from taking over your life.
Get the Facts
Your doubts don’t necessarily reflect the truth. Most times, they mirror your fears and emotional struggles.
Think about your achievements and how hard you worked to get where you are today. Be proud of yourself and admire your capabilities.
Whenever you’re in doubt, get the facts straight. Research the problem in question, weigh the pros and cons and ask for a second opinion.
Acknowledge Your Strengths
Make a list of things you excel in. Write down your skills and accomplishments. Accept praise from others gracefully and acknowledge your talent.
Celebrate your strengths every single day. Make positive affirmations and remind yourself how much you’ve done so far.
Stop thinking of what you could have done better.
Choose Your Friends Wisely
Negative people can drag you down and ruin your self-esteem.
Nothing will ever be good enough for them.
That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with positive people who support you and listen to you instead of judging.
Define Your Values
Lastly, define your values and the values you live by daily. Once you establish those, you will have a more realistic perspective of the current situation.
Focus on the things that drive your actions and are at the core of your beliefs.
Overcoming self-doubt is a lifelong process. Stop questioning your own decisions. Don’t waste time overanalyzing – trust your actions and put your plans in motion.
Simple Ways To Overcome Your Fear Of Taking Massive Action
Don’t fault yourself for being afraid of taking that big step–the massive action that needs to happen to realize your dream! It’s a natural response to moving out of your comfort zone.
But while you shouldn’t rebuke yourself for feeling fearful, neither should you wallow in it so that you never get past it.
When fear rears its ugly head, use these simple tactics to put it in perspective and move on.
Recognize Fear Is Only A Feeling
Fear can feel very, very real. But it’s only an emotion that survives and thrives when we dwell on it and start to believe it.
The first step in mastering your fear of taking massive action is to remember to tell yourself that fear isn’t real–that it’s only a feeling that can’t hurt you.
And taking action can remove that fear, so hat have you got to lose?
Everyone Has Experienced Fear Of Failure
Everyone experiences fear before they try something new. Think Tony Robbins hasn’t experienced fear of failure? Sure he has, and I’m sure he would tell you that himself.
Everyone has experienced fear of failure, the fear of looking like a fool, the fear of losing friends when you become too famous, too wealthy, too thin, or whatever.
When a moment of panic comes over you, image your role model and remember that they too have experienced fear. But they moved through it anyway.
Take The First Small Step
We’ve all heard Newton’s 1st Law of Motion: A body at rest tends to stay at rest, while a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
Notice that feeling of fear, and then take that first small step in spite of it. You will feel amazing after you’ve done that one little thing.
You’ll realize that you can do it, and you’ll be excited to take that next step. Fear will be replaced by enthusiasm!
Use A Lifeline
Sometimes we recognize fear for what it is but can’t seem to get over the hurdle anyway. That’s the right time to call in some reinforcements.
Get a hold of a friend, colleague or family member who is totally on board with your goal.
Buy them a cup of coffee and talk to them about your feelings. Use them as a sounding board, ask for their advice or just come on out and ask for a pep talk!
This person loves you and has faith that you can achieve your goal, so you don’t need to worry about being embarrassed to tell them that fear has you in a paralyzing grip!
They will support you through each step you take; sometimes all we need is to hear a person we love and admire tell us it will be all right.
Would you be interested in a handy checklist that can keep you on track and take action? If the answer is yes, check out the featured resource below; download, read it and take action 🙂
How To Write Emails That Get Read
How To Write Emails That Get Read
Want to write the perfect email for your list?
There is no such thing of course, and the ideal message is going to vary from person to person and brand to brand.
That said though, there are certainly some ‘best practices’ to keep in mind when you are coming up with your emails and that can help you to get a better response.
Let’s take a look at some of them…
Write A Story
I once heard the expression that ‘storytelling is SEO for the human mind’. This is incredibly true, and the fact is that the human psyche loves stories.
We have evolved over thousands of years with a culture of storytelling, and we find it very engaging and very persuasive.
So instead of writing about how X technique is highly effective generally, instead frame this discussion as your own personal account.
How has it helped you? Or how has it helped someone you know? How did you feel during that process?
Set the scene and get people engaged – this is far less dry than simply talking in facts and figures.
Be Personal
It’s important that the tone of your messages match the tone and the nature of your business. However, it should also match the medium – which in this case is the email of course.
Emails are inherently more personal and less formal than other forms of marketing because they’re being read in a personal inbox.
At the same time, by writing a more personal message (using the recipient’s name, making sure to use a regular letter structure), you’ll be more likely to reach the primary inbox and therefore to actually get read!
Try not to put any distance between yourself and your audience; make them feel as though you are speaking with them directly.
Provide Value
The objective of any good email should be to provide value. That might be in the form of a tip, or it might mean that you are providing entertainment.
Either way, you need to make sure that your audience feel glad that they took the time to open your message and read it.
That way, they’ll be more likely to do the same again next time!
As well as providing value though, you should also seek to make sure you are providing value in the shortest space of time.
In other words, your messages should be efficient and to the point – you don’t want to take up your audience’s time!
If you want to learn more about writing emails that make money, check out this post here.
OK, now you’ve crafted an email that people will want to read. The next hurdle is to actually to get your email into the Inbox and specifically their Primary Inbox. Let’s look at some ways to help you to do that…
How To Avoid The Spam Filter And Get Into The Primary Inbox
One of the biggest challenges for email marketers over the years has always been beating the spam filter.
The job of the spam filter on most email providers is to prevent unwanted messages from getting in – especially those that might contain viruses, phishing scams or other harmful types of content.
Today this has become even harder though. Now we not only have spam boxes but also ‘social’ and ‘promotional’ boxes that further segregate our messages and make it hard for any of our messages to gain attention.
The good news is that there are strategies you can use to combat both these issues. Read on…
Language
One of the first and most important tips for avoiding the spam box is to make sure you avoid using the kinds of words and phrases that computers associate with spam.
This is similar to the way that Google looks for keywords, except this time the keywords are a bad thing. Examples of words to avoid include things like ‘buy’, ‘free’, ‘discount’, ‘hurry’ and ‘Viagra’.
Hopefully that last one isn’t something you would be writing about anyway!
Many email autoresponders will have a built-in check and will give your email a spam score before you add it to your automation or broadcast list so make use of it. I use Active Campaign and know this definitely has this useful feature.
Structure
If you want to get into the main inbox, then it is not enough to ‘not look like spam’ – you now need to also ‘look like a personal message’.
To do this, you should take advantage of the feature in your autoresponder that allows you to use the recipient’s name in the message.
Likewise, try to structure your message more like a conventional email. That means saying ‘Dear [Name],’ and ending with ‘Best regards,’.
Plus, you also need to avoid including elements that a client will associate with a promotional image or that will make you look less like a genuine correspondence.
That means avoiding using too many hyperlinks – keep it to just one – and it means avoiding using big images.
Sender Reputation
The most important thing to do though, is to make sure that you are focussing on delivering great value over time. If you do this, then people will open your messages and they will actually read them.
This will help to improve your ‘sender reputation’, which in turn will mean you don’t get blacklisted.
And while you’re at it, why not ask your readers to ‘whitelist’ your messages and add them to the main inbox? Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest ones! You should ask them this in the very beginning of your first email to them and hopefully they will do this.
Your reputation isn’t just your own, but also the email autoresponder service you use, and this is why it is probably best to stay away from most self-hosted solutions.
By using a reliable email autoresponder, you are much more likely to hit the Inbox. Yes, you have to abide by their rules and many platforms frown on affiliate marketing, but as long as you are primarily focused on providing value to your readers, you should be fine.
Don’t be pushy and try to hard sell in every email or you could find yourself in hot water with your provider.
But there is nothing wrong with providing good value and then recommending something that can help them to implement what you have taught them.
I find this soft sell much more compelling in the long run and it shows that you are trying to provide something that genuinely helps your readers and that is the key to any good business. If you want to know more about writing good email copy, check out this post.
And, if you want to know more about nurturing your list, check out the featured resource below where you can get a free report about simple list building to expand your knowledge further. If you do download it, please read it and take action and good luck 😊
