Email List Building

The Can-SPAM act is in force in the US (other laws in other countries, but if your Email Service Provider is doing business in the US, and/or your email subscribers reside in the US, than your email marketing also must be CAN-SPAM compliant!)

In short:

• Subject lines must clearly and conspicuously identify advertisement or solicitation. In other words, the subject line must be indicative of the actual content of your email.
• A valid electronic return address working for at least 30 days
• A postal address (P.O. box is OK) must appear – add a phone number as a best practice
• Must provide an opt-out mechanism for subscribers. Instructions for opting out must be clear and conspicuous and honoured within 10 business days.
• Don’t falsify or obscure the real sender.
• Don’t “harvest” email addresses from the Internet.

You can avoid being labeled as a spammer if you aks yourself the following questions:

Do I Have Permission to Send Email?

On your web site collect visitors’ email address and first name, in exchange for a free report (white paper/worksheet/check list/Q&A/10 Top Tips). Use a double opt-in process, so you can have a clean list of people who:

• are really interested
• have white-listed your email address (helps deliverability)
• provided a live email address.

On or near your sign up form, have a link to your privacy policy, better yet, have a one sentence summary of the policy displayed on the form.

If you intend to collect more than email and first name, you will get fewer people signing up. As a general rule, the more “required” fields on a sign up form, the lower the sign up rate. You may ask questions that may not be considered private, such as “When are you planning to buy xyz?”

On the sign up form, tell your prospects exactly what to expect, i.e. a special report in PDF immediately after confirming the email address, then a weekly/biweekly/monthly newsletter with such and such content. Be as detailed as you can. Providing a sample of the newsletter may also help to clearly define expectations of the kind of content they can expect.

Do I Follow Email Deliverability Best Practices?

Use a reputable Email Service Provider (ESP). Don’t fall into the trap of doing the email sending in-house. Aweber, GetResponse and other ESPs do this all day, and they make sure your emails get delivered.

Your ESP will also provide you with custom sign up forms (even unblockable pop-ups), and will provide your subscribers the ability to manage their own subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, change preferences/lists, etc.)

An ESP can provide data on how many emails were delivered, opened, how many subscribers clicked on any links in your email, etc.

Is the Email I am Sending Relevant?

With people’s inboxes bursting with junk, spam, and regular email, being compliant with the law is not a guarantee that your emails won’t be labelled as spam.

These days, spam is in the eyes of the beholder, in other words, even your double opt-in, confirmed subscribers may click the dreaded spam button if they feel that their expectations were not being met. To avoid this, state your publishing policy up front, provide samples, then once they subscribe, provide the content that is in line with their expectations.

Don’t buy or rent email lists, unless you know 110% that the company who offers such lists is kosher. If anyone offers you a list of 1 million emails for $99, or whatever price, run like crazy from them.

Same applies to joining online list services, such as YourLuckyList, The List Machine and ListDotCom. Although they promise you access to thousands of “subscribers” I have a feeling that those thousands of people are there for the same reason you are - to offer their stuff to you - so they won’t be so responsive to your offers. That’s just my experience, you’re free to give them a try - let me know how you do, please.

My philosophy behind email marketing is - relationships - and the only way to build a relationship is if you build your own list. But, you see, building your own list doesn’t necessarily mean you have to build it yourself, alone. You can team up with others, for example with someone who offers a service or product which is complimentary to yours, and do some kind of join venture with them.

The word “blog” itself comes from “web log”, so “blog” for short. Ever since Google acquired Blogger in 2003, this medium has been on the rise. Today even companies such as General Motors run blogs. Here are five reasons why you should have a blog for your small business or professional practice:

• Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing about your experiences on a particular topic, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts to provide useful information. This will establish you as an expert; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs.
• Search engines love blogs. Because blog pages change very frequently, are content-rich, and easy to index, search engines just love to gobble them up. For example, if you noticed that your web site search engine rankings are slipping, this is most likely because the contents of your web site hasn’t changed in a long while. Search engines love fresh, new content, and by its nature, blogs are the epitome of freshness. To make the most of this, host your blog on your own domain, and use WordPress, or a similar blog system to run it.
• Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get a presence on the web is through blogging. If you can type and click a mouse, you can blog. It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, describe new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product. No knowledge of HTML is necessary, but will certainly come in handy to get some of the more advanced features set up.
• Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturates our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims. However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, untainted by paid advertising. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience.
• Blogging costs nothing. You don’t need to have any software, buy web hosting, register a domain, like you do for your web site. Any opportunity for free web time is definitely a bonus, especially to businesses that are starting up. Most major players in this arena offer free accounts. WordPress.com is one, Weebly.com is another.

Do you have a blog? A few days ago I started playing with WordPress for my blog. For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out which technology would be best, and have settled on WordPress for two main reasons:

1. It allows me to create “static” pages, so I can have a site that looks like a regular web site, with menus such as “About,” “Products,” “Services,” and so on, and at the same time have a blog going.
   and,
2. Second, I prefer to install the WP software on my own server, rather than use the hosted version of WP (i.e. WordPress.com) or other software, such as Blogger or TypePad, because it’s better for Search Engine Optimization. All the pages are sitting on my server/domain and are being indexed here, not at some blog hosting company.

Once word of advice, from my own experience: If you’re looking to save a few bucks and opt for a free blog, I wouldn’t recommend Blogger. Although it’s a good platform and all that, and being owned by Google can’t hurt these days, what I don’t like about it is the feature they have at the top of each blog, which is a link to “Next blog”: a few times I tried clicking it I ended up on blogs that I wouldn’t want my kids to see, if you know what I mean.

If you have a web site, consider re-doing it using WordPress, then you can enjoy the best of both worlds - and Google and other search engines will just love it so much more!

I just wanted to post a quick note about a new development at Aweber, one of the most respected Email Service Providers, and one of the 4 that I highly recommend to my clients.

Aweber recently introduced a new style of hover pop ups that may be just the ticket for you. Take a look at their blog and see how powerful the new feature is.

If you’re not using Aweber yet they have a 30-day trial period, so you can take it for a spin.

If you already use a different Email Service Provider, you can still create your own popups for your web site or blog with this stand-alone Windows application. For the ultimate selection, tracking options, graphics and more in using floating, unlockable popups subscribe to AdImpact

Today I’d like to remind you that you there’s a treasure trove to be discovered in my interview with Glen Hopkins. Here’s Glen’s discussion on one of his advanced list-building strategies, the so called Triple Win Customer Generation System, which is a hybrid of sorts, of the squeeze page. - Boris

What you need to do this, I’ve broken it down, basically what you need is one JV partner, or an affiliate, it takes you about one hour of your time, it is going to takeone ethical bribe, which is really nothing more than something of high perceived value, such as a call or an audio recording, that I am using in this particular case, which is of low financial cost to you, and then a back end product.

What it is going to do is build you a very highly-targeted customer list. Not just subscribers, but customers who have paid to be on your list and they have proven that they have a willingness to spend their money on you.

That is key, because if you have, not only subscribers on your list, but actual customers, that is of much greater value to you. They have a method of buying, they have a credit card and they have a willingness to pay you money.

So what we are going to do is, I am going to walk you through it really quick. You set up a simple page - withs your basic headline you see on a sales copy on your squeeze page. A headline and then you have a short sales copy letter. You can see that it is really just a few paragraphs with a picture of Mike Filsaime and myself.

Mike Filsaime and I are both list-building experts and we got together and we did a call and we talked about building our opt-in email list. It is a private exclusive call that was not available to the public, it wasn’t a teleseminar, just Mike and myself masterminding and talking about building our opt-in email lists.

Now, you need to understand that both Mike and I charge in the neighbourhood of $500 an hour for consulting. So we are looking at about $1,000.00 value here.

Now, what I am doing is: People coming to this site, I already know they are interested in list-building because the people who are sending out emails for this site, send an email to their list saying “Listen guys, I’ve got an opportunity to share a call with you between Glen Hopkins and Mike Filsaime and it is only going to cost you a dollar. You have to go check this out.”

They come to this site and for a dollar they are going to have access to both Mike and I. In other words, they are going to listen to a brainstorm mastermind session on how to build your opt in email list for just one dollar.

Now, this is a very high perceived value so, obviously, these people want to learn how to build their own opt-in email list. They click on that PayPal link that you see at the bottom, they pay their one dollar to get the call, and here is the process I go through, when they pay their dollar to get the call, PayPal gives you the opportunity to redirect them to another page and the page that I redirect them to is a registration page.

The registration page is where they enter in their name and email address. And I tell them that when they enter in their name and email address I am going to email them the download instructions for that call. So now what has happened is, I am instantly building a list of paying customers - I know that in the future if I try to sell them something, they have a willingness and ability to pay me. You are building a buyers list, the most powerful list you can have.

So we get them to enter in their name and their email address, add them to our list and as soon as they click on the submit button, we redirect them to a second page which is called our “OTO” — the One Time Offer — which is typically an up sell or a cross sell to the product or service to the product that you just sold them.

In this particular case what I do is, when somebody first pays one dollar for that call on how to build their list, the upsell on the OTO page is the opportunity to purchase my book Lucrative List Building, which is the digital version.

Now this currently sells for $147.00 for the resell rights to this ebook. Well, they can get it for $19.95 which is an unheard of price and so the conversion rates on that is very high. So what I am doing here Boris, is I am positioning myself as an expert. Because what is happening is that people are going to purchase this book, they are going to read it and they are going to learn more about me and what I can offer them. So I am positioning myself as even more as a list building expert in their eyes. Which is great for future sales again.

I sell them the ebook and here is what happens. With the ebook there is a PayPal link on that page as well, on the OTO page to purchase the ebook, that PayPal link is a link to my JV partner’s PayPal account, not mine. So my JV partner is getting 100% profit of every sale of the ebook.

You know what that is doing? The key to this is that my JV partner now has an incentive to want to tell his list all about this call for a dollar, because he knows that there are a lot of people who are going to be interested in getting on the call and every time somebody purchases that ebook he is going to get 100% commission.

That’s why it is a triple-win situation: my JV partner’s customer is winning because they are getting a $1,000 call for $1, then they are getting an ebook worth $147 dollars for $19.95, which they can resell to their heart’s content and make 100% profit on it, so they are winning. Then my JV partner is winning because he is making commissions from all of these sales. Triple win situation and the best part about it is, you are getting people on your list, you’re building your list with paying customers.

Glen Hopkins is a master list builder. He’s the publisher of the Web Traffic Report monthly newsletter and CD, and also runs a co-registration list-building service called List Builder.

If you’ve been around the Internet marketing arena for a while you must have seen these a lot. Almost every web site you visit offers some kind of freebie to entice you to sign up. Most marketers offer this incentive in a form of a special report (such as my The 4 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in Marketing).

These special reports are usually delivered to the subscriber on-line, as a download from the so-called “thank-you” page (the page that opens once your subscriber confirms his/her address, if you have double opt-in set up). Most special reports are in PDF format, but some people have audio, or even video presentations of this content.

Alternatively, you could set up your free report in a form of a series of emails, effectively creating an e-course. Essentially, you would take your report and break it up into discrete chapters, or articles. Then what you do is set up an auto-responder to deliver those messages spread out over a number of days, depending on the content and the type of prospects you’re attracting.

If you’re teaching them a new skill, you may decide to send emails daily. If the advice is a more in-depth analysis or a white paper, spread the emails by a couple of days, and give your prospects time to take the new information in and process it.

Make sure the last message in the auto-responder sequence contains a version of your sales letter, or some other appropriate call to action. You may ask the subscriber to purchase a product, call you for an appointment, sign up for your tele-seminar, or whatever your choice might be.

I would also include some sort of “About Me” blurb, plus a mini call to action at the bottom of every email in the series as well, just in case a prospect decides he or she is ready to take it to the next level and hire you.

Toolbox

Please refer to my resource page to find about which Email Service Providers provide auto-responders, as not all of them do, unfortunately.

Using email for your marketing purposes is very powerful, easy and (almost) free, and is still the most effective way to reach your customers/clients. However, sometimes it pays off to go off-line and use traditional methods for generating leads or new business.

Depending on how clean and fresh your lists are, you may be experiencing 80%-98% deliverability rates for your emails. But you must agree that nothing beats the deliverability of the good old post office!

What if you could combine the strengths of an online, automated system, which works very much like an Email Publishing System with the

• deliverability of snail mail, and
• benefits of sending your prospects and customers a tangible item?

Would you be interested in trying this almost perfect business-generating system?

About a year a go I discovered Send Out Cards, an online on-demand printing and delivery system that works very much like sending personalized email, only it prints,personalizes and mails real postcards and greeting cards in any quantity. You can send a dozen custom postcards for about 10 bucks including postage. When you send a greeting card in an envelope, you can even insert gifts such as Starbucks or Home Depot gift cards!

You can use this system to send automated, but personalized postcards and greeting cards. You can choose between thousands of great stock designs – humorous, retro, playful, business-like, your choice – or you can easily create your own designs as simply as uploading a digital photo and adding a voice bubble or a caption.

Recently, I used Send Out Cards to generate some leads for my Ezine Coaching Program. If you’ve ever used direct mail (DM), or at least read about it, you know that a decent DM campaign results in about 1% response rate, while 2% is considered exceptional. Well, my postcards generated close to 10% response rate!

I used Send Out Cards to set up a custom designed postcard (ah, the benefits of having an in-house graphic designer – me On the back of the card I have a simple marketing message, basically asking the prospect a few thought-provoking questions with a call to action to find the answers to those questions on my web site, with an offer to receive a free CD and printed report.

All of the copy on the back of the postcard is printed on-the-fly, personalized with the recipient’s name, and all of that using my own handwriting! Of course, I didn’t spend hours manually writing those postcards, I had my handwriting digitized so that my postcards appear to be hand-written.

For this particular postcard campaign I set up a special web site, with three different versions of the landing page. Why different versions of the landing page? Because I am split-testing them to see which one converts better – in other words, which page generates more subscribers.

Again, I am using my trusted Shopping Cart to manage and track the split-testing. This is so powerful, I am amazed every time I log in to my account – especially when I remember how we used to do it, many years ago with every DM piece having a little “ad code” and processing those responses in a spreadsheet! Wow. This is so much easier today.

To be able to track your off-line campaigns I recommend that you set up a special URL, e.g. www.yoursite.com/postcard, or even better, a unique web site. If you’re testing different postcards, have each card link to a different URL.

Using Send Out Cards is a great way to generate leads and especially repeat business from existing clients. However, one more great way to use Send Out Cards is to test different cards on a small sample of prospects (you can test the design, headline, copy, etc.) to see which one to use en masse, if you’re planning to ultimately send a large-scale mailing (1,000 or more cards).

Once you’ve nailed a winning card, then use a commercial printer to print your cards and a mail shop for personalization/sorting/mailing.

Extra tip: when mailing your own envelopes, try to use something to differentiate your envelope from the competition by using either an interesting sticker or enclose an object into your envelope. Anything that will make the recipient want to open it!

This is a complex question, and must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Here are some general tips on importing your list:

• Depending on where you live and where your ESP is based, different rules and laws will apply. For example, regardless of where you live, if your ESP is US-based, then the CAN-SPAM act would apply. Your local laws may be even more restrictive, so consider that before choosing an ESP.
• Some ESPs, such as Constant Contact, will let you import any type of list as long as you give them your word that the list is kosher, and, unless you have confirmation option turned “on”, you’ll be able to email this list without restrictions. This works beautifully for people who may be transferring an existing list from a different ESP, or are simply planning to start using email to reach their existing clients on a regular basis. With Constant Contact, you can confirm those emails over time, using a so-called “permission reminder.”
• However, don’t be tempted to upload one of those “million leads” CDs, because you’ll be labelled as a spammer quicker than you can say, “double opt in!”
• If you’re planning to purchase leads from list brokers, most ESPs won’t allow you to import such lists. Notable exception is 1ShoppingCart; they still allow purchased leads from services such as ListBuilder. All imports still need to be confirmed though, unless you hire somebody to manually enter them as “old clients,” one by one, but be very careful with this strategy, if you enter too many “old clients” your account could get suspended, or at least your ability to add “old clients”.
• You may be tempted to try to do the list management on your own, by setting up a mail server, and running an Email List software, such as AutoResponse Plus, on your own. This is so complex that I won’t even go there, but suffice is to say that you will have a hard time finding a reputable web hosting company who will allow you to upload purchased lists. Better stick to using an ESP, unless you’re a web-programming guru, and are ready to fight your own battle white-listing your domain with the likes of Yahoo, MSN and AOL – good luck with that!
• Once you have imported your list, you will have different results in terms of responsiveness of your list, depending on how “fresh” the list is, among other factors. If you’ve been in business for years and have never contacted your list of clients by email, it is very likely at least some of your email would be labelled as spann, even if you were trying to import a “clean, honest” list of your own clients.
• When importing a list expect to loose subscribers, anywhere from 10%, to as much as 90% of subscribers. Don’t despair, though, those who do not confirm their intention to receive email from you are, most likely, not your best prospects anyway, so don’t shed any tears over this.