The Twelve Weeks of Christmas-Week 5

Welcome to Week 5 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas series of prepping your marketing plan for the holiday season. We are going to wrap up the loose ends on using email marketing techniques this week.

Email Marketing: The Secret Is In The Delivery

The biggest mistake many marketers make contacting their mailing list is not providing quality content. Remember, people are on the other end of all your emails; if you are not providing help and developing a relationship with them, you’re results will be less than desired.

You want to over-deliver to your list. Give them more than expected. It makes it easier to turn readers into buyers when you do this.

Remember, a single mailing list can return large earnings every month. Email Marketing is one of the most crucial marketing strategies you can put in place. Get yours in high gear today.

Writing Techniques to Produce Killer Email Content

You won’t win the hearts and minds of readers with boring, non-informative content. Write your emails from the heart and in a friendly, entertaining manner. Add personal touches as you write. No one wants to feel like they are fed information by a machine.

These ideas communicate well with your list to accomplish your goals:

• Holiday Celebrations: People like to celebrate holidays and spend large amounts of money during holidays. Send dieting tips for New Years or remind them to get that gift for Valentine’s Day. People buy with their hearts first and head second. People are usually more emotionally charged during a holiday season.

• Industry News: Consistently offer subscribers to your list useful, informative industry news that will benefit them. It will get them to regularly open your emails and improve conversion rates.

• Related Industry News: Throw in a mix of related information. A well informed buyer is a confident buyer and you may even pick up an affiliate sale here and there. This is an excellent opportunity to employ some of the cross-promotion tactics we discussed last week.

• Interviews: Interviews with industry experts increases your credibility with your list. You are known by the company you keep, as they say. People love information experts. It is cost effective and not very difficult to produce either text, audio, or video interviews.

• Testimonials/Reviews: People like to know what other real people, just like them, think of your products or services. Give them something to go on with juicy testimonials. They also like to know what other options are available and reviews will provide that. Give them a reason to pull that wallet out of hiding.

• Ask Questions: It opens lines of communications and allows them to see you as a real person and not just a persona from cyberspace. It offers up the opportunity to engage them in dialogue. This has many long-range benefits. People interested in the topic will contact you and are among the easiest people to convert into sales. You also learn more about the demographics of your customer base to exploit in future marketing endeavors.

• Give Helpful Tips: People love free tips; especially if they are helpful and full of good information. “Top 10″ lists are very popular on the Internet.

• Reports, Guides or Free Courses: People love almost anything free if it actually has some value to it. A free guide, report or ecourse goes over well with almost any mailing list. It is almost a cost-exempt method of marketing. Do your homework, retain the research material, organize it and re-write it in your own words and bingo! Instant promotional tool. Give it away or sell it for a ridiculously low price and you will have a sure-fire winner. It’s also a great opportunity to offer up-sells and cross-sales on the download pages.

Frequency of Mailings

People tend to either contact their list too much or too little. The time between your emails is important to list retention and the actual conversion rate as well. Quality information is critical but so is the delivery of it.

It’s widely recommended that you contact your list about once per week unless you have something time-sensitive to tell them (like a special offer, product launch, sale, or membership closure). If you “burn your list,” you will likely see a massive exodus off its rolls.

Credibility Sells!

Ride on your expertise. You may fool a few for a short time, but it won’t take long to discover that you are posing as something you are not. To do less is to ruin your reputation and kill your list graveyard dead. Honesty is always the best policy. Customers are like mothers: if you lie, they just know.

Always come across as knowing your topic. Do your research before you engage your audience; after is too late.

Create a connection between you and your particular industry. Talk about how you have excelled in this field and what you did to garner success.

Remember this if nothing else: stay current in your field. There are no doubt people on your list that are very savvy within the industry. If you’re not current or are inaccurate, they will nail your hide to the wall; destroying your credibility. It is paramount to your success to stay up-to-date on trends and strive to be the first to let your list know of changes before they learn it somewhere else.

That brings us to the end of this week’s Christmas prep post. I hope you found something useful in it and come back next week for Week 6 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas series.

Oh yeah, before I forget. If you’re an Article Marketer affiliate, Jim Slader has a little stocking-stuffer over on the Affiliate Blog to jingle your bells a little. Go check it out.

To your success,

Brad

Brad McGovern is the Marketing Manager at Article Marketer, and offers advice and news of note to article marketers. Watch for more from Brad in the coming days!