1. Email marketing



2. Lists

3. Opt in

If you do Internet marketing you should be doing email marketing. If you do email marketing you should be building one or more lists. If you are building a list or two they should be opt in. This just means that the person agrees to receive email from you.

If it is not opt in, or even double opt in, you could be accused of spamming. Do that enough times and you will be in danger of losing your list. I should know, it happened to me.

In the summer of 2003 I was using an autoresponder that claimed to email for customers with lists of over 1 million people. My list was made up of over 125,000 subscribers I bought 10,000 at a time. They all had the time, date and ISP stamp so they were legal. I was protected, I thought.

Anyway I went away on vacation to Mexico and when I came back I had lost my list and my domain name. The autoresponder company had been shut down due to spam complaints from all of the members in total. OUCH!

So I went about building an opt in email list for marketing by getting my subscribers one at a time and making sure they confirmed they wanted email from me. I use AWeber for this and have not had one problem now in 4 years.

Here is what is great about doing it that way. I get a chance to sell 3 times.

1. On my subscription form

2. On my confirmation request email telling them to activate their subscription

3. On my thank you for confirming your subscription email

I like to offer a small bonus in the email requesting they confirm. There is so much junk mail that sometimes people just need a nudge to follow through and confirm.

And I even like to offer one more bonus on the thank you page and in the thank you for confirming email. Doing this will buld your credibility and lower you cancellation rate.

One other thing is to point them to your privacy page where you emphatically state that you hate spam just as much as they do. You will never reveal their information. I put this on my sign up form and again remind them of it in the request to confirm email. This will increase your confirmation rate for sure!

Another thing I like to do is spruce on the thank you page they get from AWeber. These are usually pretty cut and dried and people can get used to seeing it and clickin away before reading it. Liven it up a little with another bonus or a graphic or to. If you have a logo or a picture of yourself add it here. This just helps brand yourself, your company, and your product.

Finally when doing opt in email lists marketing make those first few emails you send really good. I mean so good that a person would be crazy for unsubscribing. If you have a blog post in it and get your list visiting it. If you email in html add some pictures, your logo again, affiliate banners, or anything to seem like your business is alive and fun to be around!

This should make marketing to your list more productive. Remember this! Building a quality email list can pay off for you for years to come.

Copyright (c) 2007 Jeff Schuman