email marketing
3 Things To Avoid When Emailing Your List

When you decide to start building your email list, it isn’t just a matter of sending your subscribers your promotional newsletters or bombarding them with affiliate links. There are many things to consider to help avoid upsetting your subscribers and to keep them opening your emails.
Apart from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your internet service provider or ISP. There are now many laws and rules that are applied to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and unwanted mails.
And this is especially important with the introduction of GDPR if you are collecting subscribers from the EU.
Email has always been a popular medium for marketing because of the low cost, and because of this, many companies have seized the opportunity and have flooded their subscribers email inboxes with promotional mail that offers very little in value to the reader.
This is a very big problem in the Internet Marketing and Make Money Online niches in particular.
They have consented to being on your list by signing up and giving you their valuable email address; just don’t forget to put an unsubscribe option in every email to make it easy for them to leave if they want to do so.
There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe, such as if the email account was hacked; it may be rare, but it does happen.
One thing to remember is that it is essential that you keep your list clean and manageable. You can do this by using the many tools and technologies available within your autoresponder. For a great autoresponder, check out Active Campaign or Aweber.
Do not worry; your investment in any email marketing strategy is well worth it with all the coverage you will get which will likely be converted into sales and profit. Plus, if you treat your subscribers well, they can become customers for life.
Keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the law and the internet service providers. Keep your operation legit and clean.
Your reputation as a legitimate businessman and a legitimate site depends on your being a straight and true marketing strategist. To help guide you through all of this, here are three things to avoid when emailing your list.
1: Take Notice Of Your Bounce Rate

These are e-mails that are basically undeliverable and for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.
There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at the time they were sent but these can still be delivered later, and you should be able to resend any email via your autoresponder service.
There may also be bounces because the inbox of the recipient is full at the time.
Manage your list by making a note on those email addresses that bounce. Remove these email addresses from your list regularly so that you have accurate statistics and records as to how many are actually receiving your mail.
You may also want to check the spellings of your email addresses in your list. One common mistake is when an N instead of an M is placed in the .com area.
Your bounce rate may affect your deliverability too, so it is doubly important to remove email addresses that are bouncing to ensure that your other emails aren’t being affected.
2: Make It Easy To Unsubscribe

Always provide an unsubscribe link in all of your mails. This is a legal requirement, especially nowadays with increased data protection laws. When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously.
If you don’t take them off your list and keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail.
You could also lose a lot of subscribers this way and if you earn a reputation as a spammer, this will definitely affect future potential subscribers as your name will get around the internet via social media etc. so always act with integrity and have your readers best interest at heart.
3: Keep It Clean

Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your newsletters. You probably have no idea of the real age of the recipient and you could get many complaints from this.
Of course, if you are in this type of niche, you would need to have safeguarding measures in place to ensure that anyone who does subscribe to this type of material is of a suitable age.
This is why personally I would avoid these types of niches because they are very difficult to police from your end and if you are found to be sending age-inappropriate content, you could end up in a lot of trouble.
If you keep these tips in mind, you should be able to maintain a healthy relationship with your subscribers. Always remember that you are there to serve your readers; they have come to you for your advice and guidance so don’t exploit them. It’s fine to promote offers to them, but it shouldn’t be the entire focus of your email marketing strategy.
Just think; “Would I be happy to receive this email in my inbox?”
If the answer is yes, then you are on the right track…
If you want to know more about nurturing your list after they have opted in, 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 😊
How To Get Visitors To Your Opt-In Page

Despite the recent growth of various online marketing strategies such as social media, email marketing still remains to be the most effective marketing tool for websites. A mailing list is therefore one of the greatest assets a business can possess.
Building this list however is not an easy task. Some websites have even resorted to buying lists in a desperate attempt to increase their subscribers but in the end this proves useless and even damaging.
The first step in creating a successful opt in page is increasing the traffic to it. Without people visiting the page, you have no chance of building your list. Below are some helpful strategies through which you can boost the number of visitors visiting your opt in page.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

To get as many people as possible to visit the opt in page, you need to put your website in front of as many eyes as possible. The best way of doing this is through search engine optimization.
With an increased ranking, more web users will see your website and possibly visit it.
Paid Advertising

If you are just beginning to build your mailing list, getting the traffic you need naturally can take time. To jumpstart the list, make use of paid advertising. You can advertise using Google, Bing or Facebook ads among others.
Ensure that you have crafted your ads, especially those on Facebook, well enough so as to attract as many people as possible.
Social Media

Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus are some of the best social media websites that you can use to triple the traffic being received on the opt in or squeeze page. Facebook is especially effective at this.
All you need to do is create a fan page and then get people to join it.
Be careful however not to spam your fans. Instead, strive to provide value and make offers that they cannot refuse.
Solo Ads

This is another popular method of jumpstarting your list although you will have to pay for it. It involves using someone else’s list to market your website and create your own subscribers.
Of course, you can only use solo ads with other related websites. For those in marketing and business niches, a form of solo ads is Safe Swaps – http://safe-swaps.com
A word of warning though; not all solo ad vendors are made equal and there are a lot of poor providers out there so this is NOT for the novice marketer as you can lose a lot of money quickly. In all honesty, paid advertising via the likes of Google, Bing and Facebook are more reliable.
Forums

Many websites owners do not realize the potential that forums hold in getting more people to visit an opt in page and subscribe to emails. You can easily build a list with hundreds of subscribers simply by using forums.
As you build your authority on a forum, more people will be curious to find out what you are offering.
Article Marketing

Article marketing has long been said that it no longer works. However, it should still be part of your traffic generation strategy, as you’ll still get traffic from those searching for information around a particular topic.
To increase the number of people who follow the url ensure that the article contains helpful and informative content and use more than one article directory.
Even better, post the articles to directories in a certain niche rather than general directories. Here’s an article directory where you can submit your articles: http://ezinearticles.com
Press Releases

Media releases are particularly effective at getting people to check out what you are offering.
To increase the effectiveness of press releases, create them regularly and submit them to different news websites.
Guest Blogging

Get in touch with popular bloggers and ask whether you can submit a blog post.
This tactic is all about exposure and you are borrowing the site owners expertise. The more popular the blog, the more traffic you will get.
Contests

People love winning things, and a contest of any kind will receive a lot of attention.
Ensure that the reward for the winner is appealing enough for people to want to participate.
YouTube

YouTube is the most popular video hosting website. Take advantage of the millions of visitors who visit it every day to boost traffic to your opt in page.
Learn how to create a viral video that is both helpful and interesting. In the video and description, provide a link to the opt in page. You can also encourage people to share their video on their websites for more visibility.
After you have attained considerable traffic increases, remember that there is also the work of getting people to actually join your mailing list. But once you have established a steady stream of reliable traffic, you have tackled this major first step in email marketing.
If you want to know more about building your list after they have opted in, check out the featured resource below where you can get a free report about simple list building to expand your knowledge further.
Lead Generation Strategies System Part 4

OK, in the previous posts (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) we talked about the first 3 steps in the process of attracting leads to your business, namely the automation system, so you should’ve picked your autoresponder or CRM of choice and been experimenting with it, creating your lead magnet to entice readers to opt-in and give you their email address and setting up your squeeze page to show readers the free offer.
Step Four: Traffic

The three previous steps were pretty easy. Even if you create your own lead magnet from scratch, and you need time to learn how to use your autoresponder or CRM, you can complete the other three steps in a few days at most.
You might think traffic is the hardest part, but it’s actually a lot simpler than you think to get traffic! We’re going to take a look at a few of the best strategies for getting traffic, both free and paid.
Free Traffic

As far as free traffic goes, there’s only one method that’s quick enough to generate traffic starting today, doesn’t have a hefty learning curve, and provides quality traffic that can convert: social media.
While you can still use other social networks, most of your effort should be focused on those sites that have a higher concentration of your target demographic.
We’re going to look at a few of the most popular social networks, and how you can locate your target demographic on each one in order to find out which one(s) you should concentrate on.
Locating your target demographic on Facebook is relatively simple. Begin by searching for a topic related to your niche and find pages and groups that fit your niche.
For example, if you are offering a dog walking service, you’d want to search for things like groups for pet owners in your city or state.
Find out how many people are in those groups, and how many groups there are. This will give you a rough idea of how many people you can reach on Facebook.
Otherwise, you should be able to pipe in if people happen to ask about dog walking services.
You can also start your own group, which is your best option. This will give you a source of traffic you can turn into leads anytime.
You should also start a Facebook page for your business, and you can even include a link to your squeeze page on your Facebook page.
Pinterest is like an online corkboard. You can have multiple “boards”, and then pin images with links, sort of like bookmarking a page.
You can find out how popular your niche is on Pinterest by performing a search, and then clicking “Boards” to find out how many people have boards related to your niche AND how many followers those boards have.
You can also search pins for the niche and see how many repins each one has. This will let you know how interested people are.
You’ll need to have some interesting content to pin, so it’s a good idea to have a blog or website that you use to post content related to your field.
For example, you could have a dog care blog for your dog walking service and post useful information for pet owners.
One important thing to note is that Pinterest is heavily imaged-based, so you’ll need good images to pin that relate to your article.
For example, if you’ve posted an article called “5 Tips for Housebreaking Your Puppy”, you’d want to include a photo of a dog being trained, or something related to housebreaking a puppy, and have the title of your article on the image.
If you take a look at Pinterest, you’ll see that most images are taller than they are wide. That’s because they take up the most screen real estate since images are constrained by width but have much more space to expand lengthwise. Thus, try to make sure your images follow the same format.
Instagram is a great platform for visual content, and you can get a lot of traffic from it, especially if your business is related to fashion, beauty, art, lifestyle, food and cooking, crafts, or other topics that are popular.
This will show you how many posts are currently on the site using that phrase, as well as lots of related phrases.
For example, when I search for “dogs”, I see millions of posts with such hashtags as #dogsofinstagram, #dogs, #dogstagram, and #dogsitting.
You can also click the “People” tab and click some of the top profiles to see how many followers they have. This is another good indicator of interest in your topic.
There are three important steps to getting traffic from Instagram:
- Fill out your profile and include a link to your website or squeeze page there. Make sure to choose an interesting photo of either yourself or something related to your niche for your profile picture. And include that link because you can’t include links in the descriptions of your individual posts! (Just tell people to check your profile for a link.)
- Post often. Instagram posts scroll by and are gone quickly if someone is following a lot of profiles, so the best way to get seen is to post as often as possible. Don’t spam! Just a few posts a day is fine, but spread them out every few hours. And don’t forget to add at least 5 relevant hashtags to every post!
- Follow people who are related to your niche. Many will follow you back, and others will find and follow you from those people’s profiles. It’s a good idea to follow at least 20 new accounts each day, which you can find easily through the search function and referrals from other people. Stick mostly to following accounts related to your niche, because you want qualified leads, not just a high follower count!
Other Social Networks
There are other social networks that can be effective, too, depending on your market. I suggest giving each of these a try to see how they do for your particular market, but you might want to concentrate your efforts on the other sites we’ve talked about earlier in this chapter.
Paid Traffic

I don’t recommend using paid ads until you’ve thrown a good amount of free traffic at your squeeze page for a while and tested conversion rates.
Once you’re happy with how your page is converting, you can start sending some paid traffic to it.
Let’s look at some of the most effective paid ad platforms. These are generally the most profitable, but they may not work for all niches equally, so be sure to track your conversions carefully, tweak ads as needed, and kill any ads that aren’t performing.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is generally considered one of the best advertising platforms, because ads are typically affordable and convert well. This is mainly because of how well they are able to target ads to the appropriate parties.
Remember when we talked about how important it is to get qualified leads? Facebook is brilliant for that, because they have incredibly advanced targeting options.
Sticking with our example of using a local dog walking business, you can target people in your city, or surrounding cities, AND who are dog owners. You can seriously get THAT specific!
When you create your ad, pay attention to the type of ad you’re creating. The regular newsfeed and mobile newsfeed formats are considered the most profitable.
Keep in mind that the price you pay for your ads on Facebook is heavily based on your CTR (click-thru rate), so it’s important to design the most effective ad possible.
Facebook has a great guide to help you get started:
>> https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide
Bing Ads
Bing’s ad platform isn’t nearly as competitive as many others, because they have much less traffic than Google, Facebook, and some other platforms.
However, you can still get a lot of traffic at a very low price, because the lower competition means you can actually get more traffic than you could at the more competitive sites because in many instances you could be the only advertiser in a genre.
Bing has a lot of training if you’re not familiar with the platform:
>>https://advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/training/courses
Other Ad Platforms
There are platforms you can explore as well, such as YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Google AdWords, and many others.
But these can be a little trickier to master than the other three platforms we discussed, as they are either more expensive, more competitive, or harder to master.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this 4-part series on lead generation strategies for your business. Now go and put it into action. If you want the whole series in a handy pdf that you can download and refer to at your convenience, you can do that here.
And don’t forget, if you want to know more about building your list of leads, 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 😊
Lead Generation Strategies System Part 1

If you have an online business, you’re selling something. It might be a product of your own, a service you provide, an affiliate product (or most likely multiple affiliate products), etc. Whatever it is you’re selling, you need leads.
In fact, in most major industries the average cost of a single lead is $20 or more! They’re THAT valuable. But you won’t have to pay that kind of money, because you’re about to learn exactly how to position yourself so you can easily connect with an unlimited amount of high-quality leads without breaking the bank!
So, what exactly is a lead?
How does one go about generating qualified leads?
You need to entice them to offer their contact information in exchange for something of value. It might be a free report, a training video, a discount or coupon, or something else—but it should be something they would be interested in only if they would also likely be interested in whatever you’re selling.
In other words, offering a discount coupon for a coffee shop is NOT going to get you qualified leads if you’re selling model cars. A guide on how to lose weight is NOT going to get you qualified leads if you’re offering a graphics design service.
Here is a simple example:
If you’re offering dog walking services, you might offer a free report on training your dog, or how to get bargains on pet supplies, or even a coupon for 50% off the customer’s first walking session.
To begin, there are four main elements to generating leads:
- The automation system
- The lead magnet (offer)
- The squeeze page/entry funnel
- Traffic
We are going to devote a post to each of these four elements, so you will learn more about how to start generating leads as you move through this series. By the end of this mini series, you’ll be ready to start connecting with red-hot prospects in your niche market so you can instantly maximize your income and expand your outreach.
So, let’s get started!
Step One: The Automation System

The first thing you absolutely must do if you want to generate leads is to sign up for a service that will allow you to build a database of leads through a web form.
Most people simply use an autoresponder service such as Aweber, GetResponse, but there are also services that will let you collect, store, manage, and search many different types of information if you need more details from your leads.
Here is a list of some of the most popular autoresponder services. Each of these services is widely respected and most have similar features and pricing.
If you’re just getting started Aweber has a free version you can use for a while. My personal favourite is Active Campaign because it has many features associated with much more expensive CRM (customer relationship management) solutions but for a fraction of the price.
AWeber: warr.us/Aweber
GetResponse: warr.us/GetResponse
Active Campaign: warr.us/ActiveCampaign
If you’re looking to collect more in-depth information, you might want to go with a full CRM solution. This type of software has in-depth information collection and management, allowing you to build a database of customer information that you can use for marketing purposes.
Agile CRM: warr.us/AgileCRM
Agile CRM is one of the most popular and powerful CRM systems out there, and you can start with a FREE account to give it a try. You can have up to 10 users with the trial, and you don’t have to enter any credit card information to get started.
Best of all, Agile CRM has some of the Brest pricing in the industry, with plans starting at just $8.99 per month after the trial.
Keap (formerly Infusionsoft): warr.us/Keap
Keap is one of the most well-known CRM systems out there. They have a hugely powerful suite of features, including syncing with over 200 other services from Gmail to BigCommerce, Shopify to Woocommerce.
The biggest drawback to Infusionsoft is pricing, which starts as $199 and scales upward. It’s a very powerful software, but the price may be a bit high if you’re just getting started.
Salesforce: warr.us/Salesforce
Salesforce is another very well-known CRM. They have a huge arsenal of tools available, including
They have plans starting at just $25 per month for lead generation alone, so they are affordable for smaller companies who won’t have a lot of users accessing the software. If you don’t need the advanced features, you can make do with the cheapest plan just for generating leads.
Their lead management system lets you keep track of all the stages of customer interaction and transactions.
FreeAgent: warr.us/FreeAgent
FreeAgent is a very affordable CRM system that has a wealth of features, including email tracking, outbound call tracking, sales activity tracking, real-time alerts and updates, mass email send, calendar syncing, and more.
Plans start at just $29 per month, making it a great option for new companies and those who aren’t doing enough business to support the price of one of the more expensive options.
Once you’ve decided which system you’re going to use and you’ve signed up for an account and familiarized yourself with how it works, it’s time to move on to the next step—the offer and we’ll look at that in the next post…
If you want to know more about building your list of leads, 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 😊
5 Ways To Make Your Email List Know, Like And Trust You

There is absolutely no doubt that having a huge email list can be very profitable, but building a list of subscribers is not the be-all and end-all of email marketing. In fact, if you do not establish a relationship with your list or make them feel like they have an intangible connection with you, your list will become unresponsive and die off.
You’ll notice that your emails get less opens and your unsubscribes will start increasing. Most marketers have no clue why this happens and usually there is only one reason. The people on the list just don’t like them or trust them.
It’s really just human nature at work here. If you get a phone call from someone you like, you immediately answer it. What happens if it’s someone you don’t care much for? In most cases, you’ll ignore the call and in some cases, you’ll even block the number.
Your job as an online marketer is to make your list like and trust you. They’ll then look forward to your emails and be loyal subscribers. This article will give you 5 ways to achieve this goal. Adopt them and you’ll see a marked improvement in the response from your list.
Infotainment

People love to be entertained. Even if you’re in a niche that’s serious like diabetes, you can always include interesting stories in your emails to keep your readers hooked.
Too many marketers focus on conversions instead of rapport. They keep their emails brief with a call to action so that readers will click on the link and buy what they’re promoting. While this may work now and then, over time, your subscribers will get tired of your salesy emails and it’ll turn them off.
You need to be entertaining and keep your emails helpful but lighthearted so that it’s not all about the selling.
Get Personal

It is a fact that the most visited page on most blogs is the ‘About Me’ page. The reason for this is that people are curious to know who the person behind the blog is. The same applies to your list. Your subscribers want to know who you are.
So, bring down your wall and be human. Share what makes you laugh and what annoys you… and whatever you think may be interesting.
Be Truthful

Above all else, be truthful to your list. Do not lie or resort to leaving out pertinent details just to get sales.
By making a mediocre product look like the next best thing since sliced bread, you may get the sale. However, once your subscriber purchases the product and sees what a letdown it is, they will not trust you in future.
Polarize

It is a fact that you cannot please everyone. No matter how good you are, there will be people on your list who ‘just don’t get you.’ Many marketers try to be politically correct and toe the line just so that their subscribers don’t leave.
This is wrong and it’s better to just be yourself and let your subscribers like you for who you really are. Say what you want to say without worry. Those who like you will stay on and those who don’t, will leave.
Do note that it’s best to avoid discussing politics and religion unless you’re really good at being impartial in your writing… and even then, it’s a gamble. Anything else is fair game.
Be Generous

Generosity is so rare these days and it’s especially rare among marketers. The majority of marketers only send emails promoting products with very little else to go along with their promotions.
People like to buy but they don’t like being sold to. Most people join your list for information and value. They want information that helps them. They didn’t join your list to keep buying products so that you make sales and commissions.
When you do this well, just intimating that you have a great product on offer will be enough to get their attention and they’ll buy what you recommend. You will not need to send 10 emails a day or hard sell them the product.
You attract flies with honey and not vinegar. Use these 5 tips and make your list like you like a friend they’ve always known.
If you want to know more about nurturing your list after they have opted in, 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 😊






