George McBride

Most Mailing companies increase the cost of your mailing program as your list grows, as the number of mailing campaigns grow and/or as your number of mailings a month grow in.

You may have less than 500 on your list but you mail them 5 times a month that is 2500 mailings and your price goes up.

I experienced this with another company. I had a list under 500 so I qualified for the free pricing, but I had a study going on. I emailed all participants the study material once a week, and twice a month I sent a short commentary from an expert on our study topic. And this was all in Thai!!!

I exceeded the “mailings per month” limit and my account was locked until I paid an upgraded price. That made a mess of my study. To keep going, what choice did I have but to pay.

There were 4 choices of upgrades. All four were pricey. And I thought, do I upgrade two levels just to be sure I am not locked again? Do I go to the Highest Level, that was $299.00 a month, but I got all the features and manageable limits. And it was my plan to grow. We all have that plan right?

Then I found TrafficWave. In TrafficWave you have a fixed price. With the 1 price you have access to All the Features. There is no upgrades. Unlimited List Size, Unlimited mailings, Unlimited Campaigns. All one price. Guess what service I use now?

And I made that switch over nine years ago. Still with TrafficWave and still moving along just fine. All the Features and an ever growing list.

Do you know How to build your list? Here are three points I think are important :

The number one most important thing is to build an audience, often called a List. But people don’t follow through. A big mistake is people just get a bunch of emails. You want to think Audience, not List. If you do not keep your Audience engaged they walk out.

The number 2 most important thing is to build the “know, like and trust” factor. Your content should be 80% Value and 20% promotions. Most people just post, “I just found a great new blah, blah, blah.” There is no Story, no Connection. I am not getting to know you. How can I like someone I do not know? Why would I trust you?

And…
The number 3 most important thing is genuinely serve this audience. Genuinely serving will result in a Buy Response. Disingenuous serving, serving to sell, is manipulation. People know the difference.

Cheap autoresponders, Free autoresponders, Expensive autoresponders. Which should you choose?

Your choice will depend on a few factors. This article should help you make the choice that is right for your company:

The first thing you want to do is decide how you want your autoresponder service to work for your business. If your primary goal is to generate new leads, follow up with those leads, and generate more sales, one of the cheap autoresponders may work very well for you. Simple and powerful, this can provide a great way for you to get started with email marketing and not have to worry about breaking the bank.

Many businesses choose TrafficWave due to its simplicity, low flat rate pricing, and ease of use. (Recruit Three and it is Free)

If you are more interested in a lot of bells and whistles, API Integration, Shopping Cart integration, etc… you may want to go with one of the more expensive autoresponder services.

Be aware that these sort of services typically charge more as your list grows. They have service plans for different levels. These plans are a monthly cost and limit your List Size, Your frequency of mailing or the number of Campaigns you can run. If you go beyond the limits you pay more.

For the budget minded marketer, or for someone just getting started, this may not be your best option. Trafficwave has One Fixed Price. No upgrades, no up-sell and no limit on services. One Price all the services.

If your business really needs some of the higher end integration options, it may make sense for you to select one of the more expensive services. But do not pay for what you do not use.

Of course, I should probably mention when I feel is the best time to use one of the free autoresponder services: Never.

As with many things, “Free” is often not actually free. Many of the free autoresponder services will run their ads and ads of other paying customers along with your message when it goes out. In this case, the cost of “free” is that you are diluting your message and may actually be helping someone else’s business more than your own. Many of us will gladly pay a small free to block advertising from our favorite games we play on our phones. It just makes sense to spend a little bit of money to avoid having your marketing message get diluted with other offers.

Another big issue is customer service. If the company is offering a “Free autoresponder”, they do not have funds available to provide a reasonable level of customer service.

What it really comes down to is deciding which option is the best fit for your company’s email marketing strategy. Many businesses choose TrafficWave due to its low flat-rate pricing structure of just  $17.95 per month, unlimited campaign options, and ease of use.

We have had a number of customers make the switch from the more expensive services because they found they weren’t really using or interested in many of the features. It just made sense for them to move to a less expensive autoresponder rather than continue to pay increasing fees.

Depending on your business needs and budget, going with one of the cheap autoresponders could be the right move for you!

I believe building your list is incredibly important. List building is so important that you should spend at least a portion of your daily activity on it.

Frankly, I believe it would be impossible to overstate how important list building is to any business. Let’s think about it.

Every business needs customers in order to survive and grow. But how does a business get customers? The smart ones focus on simple yet powerful list building strategies. The list they build is of people interested in learning more about their products or services.

Entertainers build lists so they can let their fans know where they are going to be next and when.

Restaurants build lists so they can keep customers coming back again and again. They send out coupon codes and even information via email.

Retailers Are all collecting your data at checkout. Why? Because they are building their list. Why aren’t you building yours?

Network Marketers and Affiliate Marketers build lists so they can find and follow up with people who are interested in learning more about their offers.

Clubs and Not for Profit Organizations are building their list. Mailing out newsletters to their list.

When you build a list, you are putting yourself ahead of the competition compared to companies who don’t build their lists. Any business that operates online or offline and isn’t building a list is essentially starting over at “0” every business day!

But the smart business person, who is building a list, is able to build momentum and quickly take advantage of sales opportunities.

The entertainer that picks up a last minute booking can quickly reach out to let their fans know. The entertainer working without a list is missing out on opportunities.

The restaurant that is promoting a special offer or event can send out a quick update to their list to bring customers in without spending any extra marketing money. The restaurant that isn’t building a list has to start over running new advertisements, spending more money, and taking more time.

Network marketers and affiliate marketers that have a special promotion can quickly release that promotion to their lists and start driving interest and sale. Those who are not building their lists have to start from the very beginning every time they have a promotion to run. They have to start a new advertising campaign, spending both time and money. And they are promoting to strangers meaning fewer sales.

When you spend a bit of time each day on powerful list building strategies, you are able to generate sales with the click of your mouse.

After 17 years, I still get a thrill when I set up a broadcast for one of my offers and send it out to my lists. It is not at all unusual to see sales coming within minutes of the broadcast starting!

This is why I am such a huge fan of list building. Once you really see how powerful list building is, you will never stop building your list. In fact, you will make absolutely certain that at least a part of your marketing budget and time are focused on making sure your list continues to grow.

Did you know, on average, there are 292 Billion emails sent every day? How will yours get seen, and when seen, get opened?

A strong email marketing strategy can help you effectively reach customers and stand out in a crowd, leading to higher open rates and increased customer engagement. That is how you drive sales.

To create successful email marketing campaigns, you should heed these four tips:

1. Personalize emails

The Amazon/Netflix effect has created consumer expectations for hyper-personalized interactions with companies. Personalizing email marketing based on customer behavior, history, interests and preferences can increase open rates and conversions.

Personalize both the To and From. We all easily understand the Personalize To aspect. But also be sure that you personalize the from so that the email recipient knows right away that it is you.

Segment customers and pay attention to customer data so as to tailor messages and personalize interactions with every person on your list.

CRM tools can help create personalized emails that greet customers by name and use data on their past purchases to suggest complementary products or services.

Personalization builds trust and relationships with customers and delivers on customer expectations for tailored, relevant interactions with you. Personalizing email marketing has a positive impact on email open rates. Data reveals that open rates for personalized emails average 18.8% compared to 13.1% without personalization.

2. Create a compelling subject line

The subject line is a make-or-break proposition for convincing recipients to open marketing emails. Readers make split second decisions on whether or not to open an email and that decision is based on the email’s subject line. A marketing email can be visually appealing and contain great content, but if the subject line is not compelling, the email won’t be viewed or read.

Subject lines should be clear, short and attention grabbing and crafted using action words that motivate the recipient to open the email. A good rule of thumb for subject lines is to use 40 to 50 characters, keeping it between 4 and 6 words. Emojis, coupon codes, humor, creating a sense of urgency with a time sensitive offer are other tactics that marketers can use to craft subject lines that increase open rates.

3. Provide value-added content

Email newsletters should include content such as product updates, news, customer success stories and promotions that brings value to the customer. Providing high quality content in email marketing campaigns is critical considering that customers are busy, their email boxes are inundated, and reader attention span has dropped to 8.2 seconds, which is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish, according to a study by Microsoft.

Content should be brief, attention grabbing and relevant to the recipient. Giving customers the news, promotions and offers they want to receive makes it more likely recipients will open the email and less likely that it will be deleted or consigned to the junk folder.

4. Pay attention to design

Optimizing marketing emails for design so that they are clear, crisp and creative will keep readers engaged. Eye-catching images, short blocks of copy and use of white space that allows the eye to rest are all design features that can help make emails more engaging.

Marketers can also amp up email engagement by incorporating design features such as animated GIFs, interactive features and gamified experiences that provide an entertaining user experience.

According to the Data & Marketing Association, every dollar spent on email marketing has a return on investment of $42. That ROI is largely contingent on one very key success metric – open rate. Marketers can strengthen email campaigns and increase open rates by personalizing emails, crafting compelling subject lines, providing value-added content and creating eye-catching design.

How do you build a good mailing list? Any email marketing success begins and ends with preparation. A plan must be in place before you start collecting those email addresses. It is important that you know what will happen after your potential customer has signed up, what they receive, and how are they segmented. Read on to discover how to get the most out of email marketing.

Principle 1 – Plan on Solving a Problem

If you want to build a good mailing list, make sure the messages you are sending solve a problem for your potential customers. They are joining your list with one primary question on their mind: “What’s in it for me?”. Make sure the messages you write answers that question.

Principle 2 – Use double opt-in

This helps you make sure your information is going out to valid, verified, and targeted recipients. You won’t profit from a big list of unverified, junk, fake, or unmotivated recipients.

Good recipients mean those who open your mails, display activity and click on the links in your messages.

Without good open rates and Click through rates your Deliver-ability will drop significantly because your messages will increasingly be designated as spam by email providers.

Principle 3 – Never buy recipients for your newsletter

NEVER ever buy recipients for your newsletter and mailing list. It may be tempting to buy 50,000 or 100,000 recipients, but at best it’s not worth the money – at worst, it can be a disaster for your business.

Most purchased lists are filled with SPAM traps that will destroy the value of your entire mailing list. A SPAM-trap is old outdated addresses that the recipient has closed 1-2 years ago, and which the mailing server – Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, or others – have made a trap. If you hit only 1 of these in your broadcast, you may risk that all the messages in your prospects emails are retracted into the SPAM folder – and at worst, completely deleted.

If they are not getting your email they cannot be opening them.

Principle 4 – Do not forget your website

Many companies completely forget the placement of the sign-up form (sign up form) on their website. A good location is not only on your frontpage since a lot of people do not see your front page at all. Therefore, the form must always be in the footer area (area at the bottom of the page found on all sides) or at the top of the page. With TrafficWave, you can easily create the registration form for your site using the capture form code.

Principle 5 –  Use a good layout

A great template and the content of emails together make the difference between opening and click-through rates.

TrafficWave offers a powerful letter editor so you can easily create the perfectly designed newsletter. The design, header, footer and other content will automatically fit each newsletter.

As well TrafficWave provides tracking on your links and a “heat map” that will help you improve link placement to maximize click throughs.

Principle 6 – A little common sense

Learn to think like your subscribers. Why are they on your list? What do they want to learn from you? Forgetting the purpose of your letters, forgetting your audience, or overwhelming them with irrelevant information can cause your unsubscribes to go up and your sales to go down.

If you want to achieve email marketing success, it is important to set and work toward quantifiable email marketing goals. The challenge for many entrepreneurs is that they may not understand how to do that.

So many entrepreneurs believe the only goal they should focus on is sales. This causes the focus of the entrepreneur to be on his business and his goals not those of his customer/prospect. While sales is important and the ultimate goal, it is important to work backwards from there to reach the intermittent goals that lead to sales.

Once you have joined TrafficWave and set up your first campaign, and you have created a capture page or added capture form to your web site, your focus should be on the following goals:

1) Driving Traffic To Your Offer Whether this is through paid advertising, free advertising, networking, or a combination of these, you absolutely must be driving traffic to your offer. Otherwise, nobody will see the offer and you will simply have a well kept secret on your hands.

2) Building Your List is the next on your list of email marketing goals. Once you start getting eyeballs on your offer, on your Lead Magnet, you need to track how many visitors convert to actual prospects. If you aren’t getting subscribers, your offer may need work. You may need to adjust your copy, your call to action, layout, etc… Testing this and getting the right balance is critical to building your list.

3) Building Rapport Now that you have prospects in your autoresponder, the next item on your list of email marketing goals is to build a strong rapport. How do you do this? Your messages should be demonstrating how you help your prospects solve a problem. If all you do is hammer your readers with offers after offer to buy your stuff, they will quickly lose interest.

Your readers joined your list because they wanted to learn more. This is your opportunity to build that rapport, show them how you can help, and let them see why they should do business with you. This is what brings us to the last goal.

4) Close The Sale When your prospects feel they know, like, and trust you, they are more likely to do business with you. Simply put, they are more likely to spend money with you if you have shown them how you can help them solve a problem, right?

This is why we break down our email marketing goals. We can track the results at each step in the process. We can do whatever we need to do in order to drive traffic. We can track how well that traffic is converting to people joining our list. We can track how many people on our list are opening our emails and clicking through to our offers. And, we can track the number of sales we are making.

This method makes is much easier to pinpoint if something isn’t working and lets us decide where to put our energy. If we are getting a good conversion rate and people are joining our list, but they aren’t buying. So, we would focus on our follow up messages to see how we can improve those results.

Feel free to drop any questions, comments, or feedback in the comments section, below.

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