Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to boost your income as a senior online marketer. It’s also one of the most intimidating strategies for many people. You are invading someone else’s email inbox, and even though they gave you permission, there’s a lot of pressure on you to give them what they want.
It helps to have a roadmap and some ideas that you can use on a regular basis whenever you want to send an email to your subscribers. Emails aren’t only sent out when you have something to sell or promote.
You have to keep your name and brand in front of the customer on a regular basis so that they don’t forget who you are or why are you contacting them. The most important thing you can do is to develop a connection with your subscribers so that they feel like every time they receive an email from you, it’s directed just at them.
Even though they know it’s not true, your personality and kindness will allow them to develop that bond. There are many different ways you can email your subscribers to provide value.
Begin a Presell Series for Sales and Commissions
Most people begin building a list using a lead magnet or what’s also known as an opt in freebie. But after you have provided the download link for that initial gift, there’s more pressure on you to continue creating value for your subscribers.
One way you can do that, while still earning money in the process, is to warm up your visitors for future promotions. You can continue giving them free gifts in the form of pre-sell reports.
These are valuable, yet brief guides that are connected to a product that you will be promoting or selling soon. For example, if you were going to be promoting a keto weight loss info product, you might provide them with a short report that dispels all of the negative information they may have heard about the keto diet.
You can also do this in the form of a series of emails rather than one complete report. Or, you can create an email series on different topics that have nothing to do with an upcoming launch.
Choose a topic within your niche, and you can come up with a number of days or lessons that you want to teach. People love paying attention to numeric lists. So if you have a seven day plan to detox from sugar, that would make a perfect email series.
It would also make a great PDF report for them to download. Another thing you want to do is to make sure that you wow your audience with value inside of these emails and reports.
You shouldn’t just try to achieve a certain word count. You want this report, whether it’s going to promote something in the future or not, to be so valuable that they can’t believe you’re giving it to them for free.
You can still tease or mention something that will be coming up that you want to tell them about, such as a product, but you want the emphasis to be on solving a problem that they are having. Once the subscriber sees that you are capable of providing value on a free level, they will feel much more confident in buying from you in the future.
Pique Their Interest and Get a Curiosity Click-Through
When you are engaging in an email autoresponder campaign, you want to learn how to tease the recipient so that they click through on something else. Start with your basic personalized greeting that you normally send your subscribers.
After that, you want to introduce a problem that makes them think. Once they have considered the problem you presented, which may be a pain point that they are experiencing, you can offer a link to a product that has tips that will help them solve the issue.
Basically, you are showing them that the problems they are plagued with, can be simple to solve if they want to. If you are a vendor of an info product, then you can also find a topic that was not covered in your product and link to someone else’s product as an affiliate.
For example, if you had a book on how to lose weight, and you covered 10 different diet plans, you could find an 11th one that was not in your eBook. Find some news about it online, such as stories that have made news headlines or a magazine issue that has something about it in it.
Share that with your readers as an additional or extra tip that was not in the paid product you sold. Once you introduce the additional facts, some tips or advice or even have some personal experience about the topic, link to the product you’re an affiliate for that covers what you did not in yours.
Another way to engage your audience with email autoresponders is to find related tips that you can share that go a little more in depth than what you’ve discussed previously. So instead of it being a completely different issue, you’re digging down even deeper than what your own eBook provided.
For example, you may have a financial success info product that you sell to people. Additional tips that you might share in an email would be how to save money when shopping online using digital coupons.
The media is a great place to find all of these additional, trendy tips. Make sure that you have Google alerts set up for breaking information in your niche. Purchase the monthly issues of any consumer or trade magazines that have tips in your niche.
Visit forums and news sites to see what people are discussing that you can share with your own audience. Remember, you can take your main niche topic and go even broader, or take your niche topic and narrow it down for your emails.
For example, if your blog or eBook is about how to lose weight, you might see a news article about how stress packs on the pounds. Share that tip with your audience as a way to expand on the information you normally share and tie it in with something else.
Anytime you share information like this, you can always add a hyperlink to an info product that you recommend that goes into more detail about the tip or solution that you are sharing.
You can do this both as an affiliate marketer and as a vendor and for both digital and tangible products, depending on the niche. While it helps you earn money, it also gives value to your subscribers because you’re opening their eyes to a new solution.
Overwhelm Your Readers with an Emotional Connection
Email marketers who form an emotional bond with their readers enjoy long-term subscribers and increased profits. You need to start by personalizing each email so that your subscribers get to know you as more than a seller or affiliate.
Tell them a little bit about your life, whether it’s the weather where you live or the food you are eating, or maybe an activity that you are looking forward to. These emails are not selling or promotional emails.
They are not meant to earn you any money immediately. What it does is help build trust and allow your subscribers to connect with you on a personal level so that they can take your recommendations in the future without hesitation.
Whenever you choose a niche to be in, you will know whatever frustrations and pain points the readers are going to have. You’ve undertaken the responsibility of their guide and leader as they travel on a journey using the solutions you suggest to try to achieve some sort of success.
That might be financial in nature or it might be a number of pounds lost. It could be that you help them alleviate stress or improve their relationships with others. You have to get to know and understand what the problems are that they’re having so that you can be the support system they need.
There are certain ways you can improve your connection with your subscribers. First of all, create multiple avatars of your subscribers so that you know who all might be in your audience.
Are they going through this all alone? Are they young or elderly, male or female, down to their last penny, etc.? Learn how to use emotional words within the body of your email.
You don’t want to be so sterile that it feels like even a robot could have written your email to them. You can tell your personal stories using emotion and showing them how sad or angry or frustrated you have been in the past.
You can also show them your happy moments, too. One of the best things you can do in order to tap in to the emotional elements of your email campaigns is to do a little research on your target audience and where they are.
Some people send out a Survey Monkey form for people to give feedback. But you can also go directly to forums or social media groups and see what people are discussing. Often, they will do so with a very emotional type of engagement online.
You want to let them know that you are there to help them and that you understand what they’re going through and what they may be feeling. Just as you do in sales copy, you want to paint a picture for them to show them that you get it and that you are there to be their guide.
Always invite people to email you back. Most marketers are very hands off and don’t want anything to do with their subscribers other than to take money from them. You want to be the one who has a genuine connection with your readers. If they reply to your email, always make sure you respond in a timely manner.
Curate Value for Your Subscribers
If you’ve ever been to a museum, then you have seen the art of curation. Curation is when someone hand picks pieces to share with others. Museums have curators who put together various shows for the general public.
You can do the same as an online senior marketer. Sharing valuable information that others have created or published is a great way to increase your credibility with your subscribers.
There are some marketers who only share product links to items that they have for sale. But your audience wants to develop more trust in you by listening to your advice as a whole.
That means if you see a competitor’s social media post or blog post, whether you agree with it or not, you can share it with your readers and open up a discussion about it. Another thing you can do is go to YouTube and find a video that you feel would benefit your audience.
You can also find one that would serve as a cautionary tale to them. If you see someone giving bad advice, you might share that with your audience as well and explain why the information in the video isn’t a good idea.
Take time to stay abreast of what’s happening in the news and alert your audience to changes in the industry. You might find out that something is dangerous or toxic, that something new has been discovered that can benefit them, or that a strategy has been developed that they may want to try.
Be sure and share these with them on a regular basis. Sometimes, you can find a cool infographic or a mind map to share with your audience as well. Both of these have summarized information in one visual graphic that can help guide them on their journey.
You can even create a mind map out of data that you have found online and want them to see in a concise image. Make sure that you are always reading books to increase your knowledge in your niche.
You can share snippets of publications, such as a sentence or paragraph that you correctly attribute to the author. Then, expand on the idea that you have curated and give your own thoughts as a leader in that niche.
Single Topics Versus Many in One Email
As you map out your email marketing strategy, consider doing a mixture of both single topics and emails that have many different topics in them. You never know which style will strike a chord best with your target audience.
Don’t be surprised if your readers like something that you didn’t foresee. If you’re creating a single topic email, you want to have a specific focus and purpose for the communication.
Start by offering your standard greeting and then introduce the topic that you want to discuss for the day. You can give them a summary of the problem, a tip or advice for them to take, and share any other advice that you feel is relevant.
But always end it with a call to action for them to walk away with. It doesn’t have to be to buy something, but just to take action in some way, shape, or form so that they feel accomplished after taking time to read your email.
If you want to create an email that has many different topics in it, then each topic will probably be shorter than the single topic email-wise as a whole. The reason some subscribers prefer this type of email, where you discuss different things in each communication, is because they like to see if there’s something relevant for their own needs in it.
For example, if you run a weight loss site, and your email is just about keto, which they have vowed never to try, then it is a useless email to them. However, if your email discusses keto in one section, calorie counting in another section and a mindful eating mindset in another one, they might find one or two areas that are relevant to their needs.
This can prevent you from suffering a flurry of people who unsubscribe. Start by figuring out which topics you want to discuss in the email. If you have something that you want to promote or sell, you might want to put that first.
Then, include all of the tips and guidance that you would like to offer after that. This ensures that the subscriber has at least been exposed to the paid offer that you want to promote before they get to the value-based information.
If you start with the value information, they may click out and never see the item that you are promoting. When you want to have a multiple topic email, you can follow up a promotional section with a curated link to somewhere else, a blog post that you wrote that has great value in it, or something else.
The main thing you want to do when you are developing an email marketing strategy is to pay attention to the responses that you get from your readers. You don’t want to cave in to the demands of a handful of people, but do listen to the feedback and try to understand what works best.
Just because one person emailed you saying they don’t like a daily email, if your open rate and retention rate of subscribers is continually good on a daily basis, it means the majority do not share his or her opinion.
Creating emails on a regular basis means you have to become adept at research, creativity, and brainstorming. You’ll need to have your ear tuned to the niche so that you’re always sharing new information with your audience.
Make sure they know you genuinely care about helping them. You can do this by being vulnerable about your own journey, and taking a vested interest in theirs. Be responsive and show you want to help by delivering tips, advice and solutions that truly will make a difference in their lives.