One of my readers asked,
How do I make money from my e-mail list?
Before I explain how to make money and get traffic from your e-mail list we need to talk about how important your list is to your business.
1. Remember that your e-mail list is your most important asset
This subscribers you have on your e-mail list, and the relationship you have with them, is the most important asset you have. So you must do your best to take care of your subscribers.
Remember the story about the farmer with the goose that laid golden eggs? Everyday the goose would lay 1 golden egg and the farmer would collect it and sell it. This made the farmer very rich. But this wasn’t enough and eventually the farmer killed the goose so he could get all of the golden eggs. To the farmer’s dismay there were no golden eggs inside the goose and now the goose was dead and he would never get any more golden eggs.
Your e-mail list is like the goose that lays golden eggs. It has the power to make you very wealthy. But if you abuse your subscribers, or the very least irritate and annoy them, they will leave your list and you will have nothing left.
2. Focus on providing value
The main focus of your e-mail list should be to provide value to your subscribers.
When someone signs up for my e-mail list I send them a welcome e-mail and links to all of their freebies and goodies I promised them.
While I do advertise with my e-mail list the main focus is providing quality content for my readers.
The e-mails I send out frequently follow this format:
Subject: How to build a community and get people involved with your website
Hi {name]!
How to build a community and get people involved with your website
=> http://…Getting Traffic Is Easy With Nick’s 177 Traffic Videos
=> http://….Thanks,
NickP.S. If you ever have a traffic question hit the reply button and
send an email to nickstraffictricks@gmail.com
Notice that in the first part of the e-mail I have a short description of something related to traffic generation (“How to build a community and get people involved with your website”) and that the subject has these exact same words.
Directly below the description is a link to that blog post with that exact same name.
After that comes short description for something I’m advertising. And the description is followed by a link to the product.
I close the e-mail somewhat informally, in much the same way you would when writing to a friend or an acquaintance.
I then add a P.S. to let the reader know that they can e-mail me anytime with their traffic questions.
3. Giving more freebies to your subscribers
Occasionally I will add a new freebie for my subscribers and let them know about it.
For example, a couple weeks I sent out 15 Videos on How To Setup An Email List to my subscribers and made them available to anyone who signs up for my e-mail list in the future.
Periodically sending out additional freebies to my subscribers helps to ensure that they stay happy and subscribed to my list.
Another thing I like to do with the freebies is use them as a bribe to join my list.
4. How I get traffic from my email list
Every 4 days I send a short e-mail with a link to one of my blog posts that will help them get more traffic. Because people know I’m sending out links to quality stuff they are far more likely to open e-mails from me and to stay subscribed.
Some of my subscribers have been on my list for a year or more and have received more than 50 e-mails from me. Imagine how many times these people have visited my website!
And remember, return visitors are 10 times more likely to buy stuff you are promoting than first-time visitors.
5. Avoid misleading subject lines
This should go without saying but please don’t mislead people with your subject lines.
If your subject line says “free report” then you better be giving away free report. Hint: If they have to pay for it then it’s not free!
By all means be creative with your e-mails and your subject lines. Just don’t violate peoples’ trust. People will unsubscribe from your list the moment that they feel you are not being honest with them.
6. Keep your e-mails short
Generally it’s best to keep your e-mails short and to the point.
Most people today have way too much e-mail to read and very little time. So if your e-mail drones on for 30 paragraphs there is a good chance no one is going to finish it.
If you have a lot to say in your e-mail then consider writing a blog post with all of your thoughts and send a link to the blog post to your subscribers.
The benefits of this are:
- You have a lot more control over formatting and images with a blog post.
- Spam filters have a long list of words and phrases that they look for in e-mails that you send. If they find one of these words or phrases in your e-mail then it will be flagged as spam and no one will ever read it. But if your e-mail has a short description and link to a blog post then you should get by the spam filters just fine.
- People can bookmark your blog post and come back to it later. This is seldom done with an e-mail.
- People can tweet and stumble a blog post sending you more traffic.
7. Invite people to email you their questions
At the bottom of my e-mails I invite people to e-mail me with their questions. This is a great way to build a relationship with your readers and at the same time gain a better understanding of their wants and needs.
Just make sure that you check this e-mail address on a daily basis and respond to peoples’ questions.
8. How to make money from your e-mail list
There are a couple different ways that you can make money from your e-mail list.
First, you can advertise in the e-mails that you send. You could include an advertisement at the bottom of every e-mail or you could send out e-mails that are just advertisements.
Make sure that your advertising is targeted to your audience. For example, if you have an e-mail list about dog grooming then don’t send them an advertisement about how to make money online.
Second, you can use your e-mail list solely to send traffic to your blog or website and have the advertisements only appear on your blog or website.
So which one is best? Or should you do both?
Every website and every niche is different so you need to test it out for yourself and see what works best.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
When I read the paragraph about "Avoid misleading subject lines" I thought that I should share my experience from last nigth with you.
I sent out a newsletter to my list last night. The message was quite short as it was just an announcement that something is available and can be pre-ordered now.
I checked the message, made sure all links work, the preview looks good, the correct email address and name is shown in the mail and finally pressed send.
The program sent out the newsletter over nigth and when I checked my mail this morning I found that I had used an old subject line. Really bad, as the content of last nights mail is only slightly related to the subject line from a former mail.
The bad thing: lots of unsubscribes
The good thing: an unsubscribe is better than a spam complaint
Lessons learned:
NEVER create a newsletter / mailblast in haste.
ALWAYS send a test mail to yourself and review it (use different mail clients and accounts to check if everything looks good).
TEST, TEST and TEST again
It's too bad that people unsubscribed so quickly. I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt to people and if it is just a mistake then I try to be understanding. But if it becomes a pattern then I usually unsubscribe.
Bill (LoneWolf) Nick recently posted..Further Down the Rabbit Hole …
Wow! These compilation of how to manage an effective email list was really great Nick! These tips are really effective based also on my experience. I'm just about to implement email marketing that's why I'm browsing and reading these kind of stuff. Good Job!
Thanks
Massy
Nick,
This email, 8 Tips To Get Traffic And Make Money From Your Email List, had some excellent information, as does all your emails. I have been on your list for more than a year and intend to stay on your list as long as you write. I'm just getting started in doing business on the net and consider you one of the best sources of info for traffic ideas. Who knows, maybe someday soon I'll actually purchase something. LOL
I was appreciate when people buy things through my links!
I love how the comments that people leave are sometimes just as educational as the posts themselves!
Thanks for the tips, as usual Nick. I've been trying to follow your posts more closely lately now that I have a squeeze page all set up and I'm trying to make sure my autoresponder messages are up to snuff and giving people what they want.
Now I just need to go back through your traffic tips and get eyeballs on my squeeze page.
Including advertisements in your emails might be one way to make money, but avoid sending too many. Even if they are of the same subject, people generally dislike getting advertisements. If you make it too regular, your subscribers may end up ignoring most of your mails. Anyone who makes this mistake should get more training on gaining traffic from emails.
Good points Sue.
We are finally getting our mailing list together and we did our first mailing and got work through it. What’s really nice is the email programs that tell you who opened the email and how many times. It gives you some insight into who is really interested in your offer or what you have to say. Thanks for the info!!
We sent out a fairly successful email to our clients but we accidently sent it from a template that had a couple of typos (we fixed the typos but forgot to save it as the new template…). I thought we should send out another email with a “find the typos” contest to win a new design or some free backlinking or something…
Hey that’s a clever idea!
This post is gold. Many people claim to be a seo expert, but they are not familiar with other things that make money for site owners. You managed to touch on a topic that not many people are familiar with, and hopefully this saves a lot of time for every reader subscribed to a mailing list.