How do I swallow the bullet of email marketing.....

[Ron Hitson]

I know everyone says "the money is in the list".

I just cannot stomach it. Meaning ,the ongoing promotions that people with lists do.


One of the main reasons I don't subscribe to any lists is because I know, eventually the sales pitches are going to start coming in.

I really feel as if a lot of marketers don't care one single bit about their customers. They just want to pound them with offers, even once or twice a month is to much over a long period of time.


Right know, I promote Amazon products. I am not building a list as I planned because I just don't want to promote products that way.

It seems like the autoresponder was created as a good follow up tool but it like many other things, is being abused by marketers.


Your thoughts?

 

[Laura61]

I can identify with your feelings. I'm in the process of rewriting my follow-ups to minimize the sales aspect and maximize the valuable info aspect because I don't want to be one of those marketers who just bombard subscribers with sales pitches. With the proper balance, I think e-mail marketing could be a really good thing, but most e-mail marketers aren't attaining that balance.

 

[EmpyreRam]

Yup thats true but on other side thats how marketing goes

 

[Ron Hitson]

Hi Laura,


I think you nailed it. It's about finding the balance. Being marketed to is not a bad thing but it's the sleeziness factor that I don't like.

IM, in my opinion, has a serious image problem and it does not appear that it's going to change any time soon.

I was on a sales page looking at a IM ebook. Everything was ok, than I got down to the Buy Button and below it was a 2 minute video. The video was basically the product owner driving very fast in a expensive sports car. The camera shots showed different angles of the car.

I thought "he must think people are really stupid". It was very tasteless. I guess there are lots of people that do dream of driving $200K sports cars and want to use IM to pay for that lifefstyle. I'm not one of them.

That really turned me off. I click right off of the page.

I want to build a ethical, long tern business that has high standards.

I can identify with your feelings. I'm in the process of rewriting my follow-ups to minimize the sales aspect and maximize the valuable info aspect because I don't want to be one of those marketers who just bombard subscribers with sales pitches. With the proper balance, I think e-mail marketing could be a really good thing, but most e-mail marketers aren't attaining that balance.

 

[jcorkern]

I think most are missing the point of an effective email campaign. Most are looking at only sending out a "sales" letter at each mailing, and this is the worst mistake you can make.

Email marketing is about relationships, nothing more. You have to send free stuff, information, asking for them to do a survey, ask for favors and even just as simple as sending them a holiday "hello" with no other motive to make a real effective email campaign. Your sales emails should be no more than 1 out of 3 emails sent if you want to build a relationship that will stand the test of time.

You can send a link to a blog post that has some info that they may be interested in, but has no product or service for sale that is related to your product or service.

Use these types of emails to educate your "friends" and then you send the sales letter and you can convert in excess of 30% sometimes.

Join the list of a news site, and see how they write them, they are selling nothing to them but an idea, or a social belief that you may share in common. Then, when you have something that really does fit the bill, you can send out that landing page or affiliate link.

I guess the point is to make it "personal" and you will do just fine, make some friends with benefits!

 

[Linda Buquet]

If you are mainly subscribed to Internet marketing and make money online lists, that's where you get the idea that email marketing is hype-filled and spammy.

If you subscribe to other industry newsletters for instance from retailers or service providers, they aren't all that way. Many send newsletters that really are just news, helpful tips and product info, maybe with an occasional offer HOWEVER the good ones know to always deliver more value than pitches.

 

[jcorkern]

You said in two simple paragraphs what I was trying to get across. Thanks for the help, you made it sound so simple and easy to understand.