If you stop to think about it, we’re all marketers. We all have something to sell and we need to market it, whether product or service. Narrowing the focus of your newsletter to your particular niche will increase your bottom line – whether you’ve got a huge list, or not. Your email marketing list is an important feature, don’t get me wrong, but look at it this way:

Not everyone who goes into a store is looking for the same thing.

What is the strongest thing you offer, and who wants it? Your list should be divided up so your message targets the particular group who have already shown interest in a thing, or are in the category of someone who may not know that your product or service is their remedy.

The templates shown on AWeber for newsletter design are a nice way to present your message, and they do impact your readership to a degree, but the most important thing will always be the content specific material that is provided in it.

Kaye Z. Marks says it this way in her article titled, Where Is Your Marketing Attention Focused?,

If you send out a mass mailing to everyone you can, odds are the people who will take interest are the same people you could have specifically targeted from the beginning instead of wasting money sending something to all the people who did not have interest.”

She’s absolutely right. Some of you stop here for information on marketing your small business by yourself, others want to know if they trust the claims that we make about our services . As our list grows, so will our specific newsletter offer to each separate group of readers.

A great newsletter takes much forethought, but the right tools make all the difference. What email service are you using?

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So, What Goes In A Newsletter, Anyway?

(PT2) We want  relationships with our customers and readers to be actual relationships, and that requires two-way conversation. We want to encourage them to call, sign up, or click on a link. We want them to tell us what they thought of our products or services. If you read my earlier post on the value of influencing customer response, it’s time to start asking  questions and posing  statements that engage dialog.

Or you can just wait and see if your schedule fills up. (See pic for emotion that follows waiting for your schedule to fill up).

I suggest being proactive by adding these types of messages to your campaign:

• Has this helped you? We’d love to hear about it. Please email your comments to info@xxxxxxxx
• Please leave us your comments, is there anything you would like to learn about in the future?
• Please take this survey. It will only take 30 seconds of your time.
• Sign up for this promotion using this code: xxxxxxx
• If you purchase during this week’s promotion, every second item will be reduced! Buy now!
• Did you enjoy the last service call or sale? If your friend schedules and keeps an appointment between now and the end of the month, get $$ off of your next appointment.
• I want you to feel great about your purchase and to be totally satisfied because I know you made an excellent choice.

Notice how every one of these suggestions specifically asked the reader or customer to respond in a certain way? Did you notice the persuasive mechanisms at play? Believe it or not, these types of messages increase your response rate and conversion astronomically. You can’t go wrong inciting a positive response, but you can go terribly wrong not doing so.

How Do You Track Your Response Rate?

How do you know if your methods of engagement were successful? A customer code ( link) to a page on your website that is unrevealed in regular navigation is a great way to know that the traffic you’ve encouraged is responding.

Set it up and use your Web analytics to find out how many visitors are making it to that page.  Use surveys to  narrow down your information, and offer a discount or coupon for taking the survey to get the highest response rate. If your specials are only offered to those taking the time to respond to the survey, you’ll know exactly how successful your promotion was. Follow our  link to AWeber for the easiest way to track email promotions.

Take this advice and your readers will be EXCITED to open, read, and click on most anything you send, and look forward to more. How are you encouraging your customers’ response? Let us know what you would like to hear more about and we’ll be happy to respond to YOU.

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Can YOU Influence Customer Response?

Build Your Email List – Jump Start Your Marketing

Can what you say or write about your product, service, or message really influence a response from your customer? Can you inspire a reaction? 

If you’re a parent, you’re aware of several methods. We’re always being incited to respond, and kids are infamously receptive. No doubt you recognize these attempts on you and your children:

• At McDonald’s
• Water parks
• Shopping malls

In each of these places, you’re being sold on the idea way before you’ve purchase anything. The first response they go after is a positive emotion association.

How Can This Work For You?

Not every response from your customer will be a sale, this time, but every attempt you make at inciting emotion is an investment successful companies know will eventually return positive results. So what responses would you like to encourage?

• Do you want your message to ‘go viral?’
• Do you want comments and feedback?
• Do you want your potential customer to purchase?
• Are you working on a larger sale from a previous customer?
• Are you testing an offer to check the response rate?
• Do you want more customers?

Think about what you want your potential client or previous customer to do, and then encourage that response by connecting it to an emotion your customer is likely to experience. Something your company remedies.

It can be as simple as adding language to the bottom of your email campaign, newsletter, blog, or direct mail. Specifically target the response you’re after by evoking an emotion that requires action.

Remember the basics, too. Hopefully, your subscriber enjoyed hearing from you.

• Are you adding tidbits to your regular messages that they enjoy?
• Is your tone pleasant, and do you offer what your readers are after?
• Do you offer a free anything? (freebies = good)

In my next post I’ll go over some simple ways that you can influence customer response to find out information, add to your client list, and sell your product or service to an otherwise lethargic customer.

Are You Losing Profits Due to Inconsistent Follow-Up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow-up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow-up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow-up process.

Follow-Up Through Email List Marketing Increases Your Profits

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products. In order to set this system up though, you need to do some planning.

Develop Your Follow-Up Messages

First, develop your follow-up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow-up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services.

Your next two or three follow-up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow-up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow-up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately.

Phrase each of your final one or two follow-up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is too high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow-up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

Watch the Timing of Your Follow-up E-mail Messages

The timing of your follow-up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow-up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow-up.

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterward. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions.

Send the next two or three follow-up messages between one and three days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around. Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale.

Send the final follow-up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect. Make sure that these last letters are at least four days apart.

We recommend AWeber for automation of your follow-up email list marketing campaign.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow-up;  don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Image Credits: Osbock on flickr and Hummingbird by Images by Hawkeye

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