Most small businesses rely on two things:

Repeat Customers/Visitors & Referrals

…both of which come from earning the trust of your potential clients.

No matter whether you market big-ticket items like automobiles, or small items like candles or cookies, you probably rely heavily on one of those things to sustain and grow your business.

Collecting and building relationships with opt-in subscribers helps you to differentiate yourself from your competition and build the trust that leads to first-time, repeat and referral-driven sales.

Checkout Aweber to take control of your email marketing…

There are many opportunities to get a new subscriber when you’re offline, in the “real world:”

* People calling you by phone to ask questions

You can take subscribers by phone. Come up with a short
pitch/explanation of what you’re offering via email
(just like you would on your website) and ask for their
email address.

Put them in a spreadsheet and import the new addresses
daily or every couple of days.

* Visitors to your physical store

Restaurants, bars, doctor’s offices… if you have
people coming in person to see you, ask if they’re
already getting your specials/newsletter/other
information.

If they’re not already subscribed, have a signup sheet
that they can fill out, or give them a card with the URL
of your site/opt-in form so they can sign up there.

* Conferences, Trade Shows, etc.

If you have a booth at a trade show, or are going to a
conference, you’re bound to get a lot of business cards.

Just like on the phone, come up with an “elevator pitch”
for your list.

When you’re talking to someone and they hand you their
business card, make your pitch. If they accept, write
“Subscribe” or “Yes” on the card.

When you get back from the event, import the addresses
of the people who accepted.

Provided by Aweber

The results of a consumer email survey suggest that, though many consumers rely on email for shopping news and ideas, consumers are becoming savvier in the management of their inboxes

Return Path’s third annual Holiday Email Survey looks into the responses of 2,400 US and Canadian consumers in November and December 2006.

Influences on opening an email – the biggest influencers behind the decision to read an email are knowledge and trust of the company who sent it, as well as a previous, positive experience with the sender’s emails.

Know and trust the sender – 55.9%

Opened previous mail and though valuable – 51.2%

Subject line – 41.4%

Only open normal emails – 32.2%

Preview window caught my eye – 21.8%

Offer of discount – 17.5%

Subject lines were all important – 41.1% of respondents open an email because the subject line caught their eye, 53.7% read the subject line first, then opened the email.

The best subject lines:

State the offer clearly – 55.2%

Offer a discount/free postage – 49.6%

Include the brand name of the sender – 48.8%

Marketers need to be aware of sending too many unwanted emails. – Too many emails can have a negative effect on brand and cause customers to ignore or unsubscribe from them. The volume of all email, including spam was up by 300 – 500% in Q4 of 2006.

44% said they had received high volumes of emails from companies they know, but weren’t interested in.

37% of respondents said they had received more permission based email than they had expected.

15.9% saying the excess volume was ‘exhausting’.

Consumers savvier in management of inboxes – Most respondents believed that email levels had risen over the holiday season.

54.5% deleted additional emails without reading them.

24.1% unsubscribed from them

26.6% hit the spam button

Email marketing is clearly effective – though customers are more savvy in dealing with their inboxes, high volumes of respondents clearly appreciated the emails they received – almost half (49%) had taken advantage of several email offers in 2006.

[tag]Split testing[/tag] involves trying different versions of [tag]web pages[/tag], [tag]web forms[/tag], [tag]checkout[/tag] process’s to see which version performs the best, you would alternate evenly each version everytime a new visitor views the page in question. Some software programs allow you to do this eg, PPC engines such as Google Adwords and for email purposes Aweber has split testing functionality built in.

For example, if you were split testing different web forms to see which one attracts the most sign ups you might try:

* A different colour for your headline
* Different headline copy
* Different ad text
* A long & short form
* Different order of fields for the visitor to fill in

Split testing adverts in [tag]Google Adwords[/tag] you might try:

* Different headlines
* Different ad copy
* Different capitalisation of your text
* Different calls to action

Split testing email newsletters:

* Different subject lines
* Using personalisation
* Different newsletter copy
* Different colour schemes
* Different layouts
* Different calls to action
* HTML vs Text
* Which day of the week & time the newsletter is sent

After all doing business on the Internet is a numbers game, track everything you do & see what produces the best results for your business….

Below are some typical opt-in rates you can expect from different styles of opt-in forms:

Form Type Opt-in Rate
———————–
inline 13.38%
popup 12.02%
popover 10.70%
popunder 2.63%
exitpopup 2.69%

Opt-in rates can very widely depending on [tag]website[/tag], subject & [tag]audience[/tag], the above stats are taken from Awebers averages across their client base using their [tag]web forms[/tag].

Dont hide your [tag]subscribe form[/tag], make sure its in a prominent position on each page & not hidden away through numerous links.

Make sure people know why they should be on your list, how are they going to benefit by subscribing to your email newsletter ? Insider tips & tricks, tutorials, advice on making money etc.

[tag]SPAM[/tag] emails are a part of every day life nowadays, people learn to live with them but they certainly don’t want to start recieving any more by subscribing to your list. Ensure visitors that you will not be reselling or spamming them when they get on your list.

Keep it simple, don’t ask for their life story! Just get the key information like name & email address. If you need extra information you can get this at a later date once you have built up a trust relationship with your subscriber base.

What is list building ? [tag]List building[/tag] is a key part in any successful [tag]internet marketing[/tag] campaign. Your ‘list’ is your database of [tag]email[/tag] address’s from people who have requested to recieve information from you & your company via email.

What is a auto responder ? An [tag]auto responder[/tag] is a type of E-mail that automatically replies with a standard message to anyone who sends mail to it. They can be used as E-mail brochures to easily disseminate information to interested customers about specific products, new product announcements, or your company. They can also inform the sender that a message has been received (definition by vitalnet.net).

Why [tag]build a list[/tag] & use auto responders ? Direct marketing studies show that it often takes 7 or more exposures of a marketing message before a consumer makes a decision to buy. What’s happening as those “7 exposures” add up? They are building the credibility, familiarity, and trust with their audience which in turn, bottom line, increases your conversion rates. This is nothing new in the Internet Marketing world nor is it rocket science, but it’s one of the most effective ways to increase conversions & is often overlooked by many [tag]ecommerce[/tag] / [tag]website[/tag] owners.

Thats all for now but look out for future posts on how to fully extract the power of your list!

Answer: Many [tag]email[/tag] [tag]marketers[/tag] are of the mistaken impression that simply putting the word free in their [tag]subject line[/tag] automatically gets their message filtered. In a very small number of [tag]email clients[/tag] this may be true, but the overwhelming majority do not filter this because it’s simply too common to be used as a reliable indicator.