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Yesterday we looked at why you need a Newsletter list and where to get one set up. Today we’re looking at how to use it.

Ok, I have an autoresponder, now what do I do with it?

That’s easy:

1. You get subscribers to sign up to your list; and

2. You email them.

Finding Subscribers

So where do your subscribers come from? Anywhere you can legally and ethically find them…

Signup box on your website – have it clear, easy to see when people land there. For best results, ask for simply their First Name and Email Address. That’s all, just those two pieces of information.

Free Offering – give people a free gift for giving you their contact details. Offer a free report or ebook, related to your business. DON’T give away free consultations or anything that requires an ongoing time commitment!

Stalls, markets – have a signup form for people who would like to be on your list. If you do this, make sure you add them to your list within 24 hours of the stall and email them immediately to welcome them. Don’t leave it for long because they’ll forget they filled in the form and will delete your email or mark it as spam.

Promote on FaceBook – If you’ve got a fan page on FaceBook then you can add a tab or box with your signup form in it. Remember to let your fans know about it when you put it up.

Competitions – run a competition where people have to sign up to your newsletter list to join in. Check with your local government for rules and regulations concerning competitions first though.

Ask people – when you meet people at networking functions etc, and they express an interest in what you do simply ask them if they would like to join your newsletter list.

Joint Ventures – run a promotion or competition with an another business, complementary to yours,

What do I email them about?

Anything that is relevant or interesting for your subscribers. Unless you’ve set up your list to be very clearly a Sales list – like our VIP list, where people are told when subscribing that they’ll receive sales offers and it’s not a newsletter list – then you need to send interesting content to your subscribers.

I’m not saying you can’t market to them, that’s the primary purpose of having a newsletter list, I’m saying that you need to send them information that is interesting. And bring in the sales content in a nice way, without beating them over the head with it.

- A new product you’re releasing
- Product of the month special deals
- Case studies and testimonials
- New and interesting uses for a product
- Developments and new findings relating to your core business
- What’s been happening in your business
- Profile a client
- Answer questions from clients (be careful of confidentiality issues, ask for permission first before using a clients name)
- Profile one of your staff members
- Articles to help your subscribers
- Subscriber only discounts
- ????

What else can you add to this list?

Questions or comments about Newsletters and ezines?  Please come and share your thoughts in the comments.

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Over the last few weeks I’ve has several discussions with coaching clients regarding email lists, why they need them, how to collect names and how to use the list.

I’ve written about newsletter lists before, in The Money’s in Your Newsletter List and a guest post at IttyBiz on Putting the Permission Back into Marketing Take a few minutes and go read both those posts, then come back to this one.  Go ahead, we’ll wait for you….

Why do I need a newsletter list?

You need it so you can market to people, so you can contact them again after the initial meeting. Statistics show that it will take up to seven contacts before a person is ready to buy from you. If you’ve met someone who is interested in what you do, what’s the best way to contact them again? Your newsletter list.

But I already have a blog and RSS

Yes, yes, I know you do. So do I. And I also have a newsletter list  for our VIPs.  (Are you a VIP?  If you’re not already, go sign up now.  We both know you ARE important so go join the VIP list) What’s the difference between having a newsletter list and RSS?

People on your newsletter list have asked to be there because they’re interested in what you’re selling. Most people on your RSS list probably don’t read your feed regularly. (Sorry for the bad news, but it’s true) When people are busy – and we all are – feeds are one of the first things to be dropped.

People often sign up for RSS feed if they’re unsure whether they like the site’s content and direction.  They sign up to keep an eye on it without having to go back to the site.  People who sign up for your newsletter have proactively indicated that they’re definately  interested in hearing more from you. They’ve said they want to buy from you.

I have no idea how to set up a newsletter list

Autoresponders are brilliant. They take the hard work out of subscriptions, un-subscribers, setting up the list, emailing etc. Two of the best are MailChimp and Aweber. MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers, Aweber is paid for.

Aweber has a higher delivery rate and more formatting options but is a a little harder to use (not much, just not quite as user friendly until you get used to it).  MailChimp’s pricing increases as you get more subscribers and if you send more emails each month, Aweber’s pricing stays the same no matter how many subscribers you have or how many emails you send.   It’s your choice which option is best for your business.

Best-practice – Single or Double opt-in

All autoresponders should give you the option to have either single opt-in or double opt-in. Single opt-in is where a subscriber fills in their details in the form, clicks ‘submit’ and they’re on your list. Double opt-in is where they fill in their details and click ‘submit’, your autoresponder sends them a confirmation email and they have to click on the link to confirm their subscription.

Single opt-in is not complicate with the CAN-Spam Act, however it’s still widely used. Double opt-in has a lower confirmation rate, which is why so many people stick with single opt-in.

Double opt-in is the best practice. It’s the safest option to use and helps give your subscribers confidence that you’re not going to spam them. If you’re taking care of them from the beginning then you’ll likely continue to do so.

Part 2 on using Autoresponders and newsletters will follow tomorrow.

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‘Build it and they will come’.  Back in the wonderful halcyon days of the early internet, if you simply put up a business website you were considered to be cutting edge and would receive traffic and customers.

Unfortunately that’s no longer true.  Every single business website now has to compete with millions of others on the web and likely hundreds of those are all chasing after the same customers as you.  Now it’s ‘Build it – and hope like anything that they come!’

If that’s enough to make you want to give up right now and go hide under a rock, there is some good news.  Really! There are ways to drive traffic and build your business in the cluttered environment of the internet.  And most of them aren’t rocket science and don’t require an advanced masters degree in psychoanalysis or computer science.  (Unless your business is psychoanalysis or computer science!)

Let’s have a look at some easy ways to get your business out there and noticed:

1.    Look at your website. REALLY look at it!  Now go and ask everyone you know who hasn’t already seen your website to have a look at it, then ask these questions:  Is it attractive to your market?  Is it easy to navigate around?  Is it blindingly obvious what your business is and does?  Is it up to date?

2.    SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Your website is optimised for SEO isn’t it?  If it’s not, then get out there and get it fixed, like, yesterday.  Not having your site optimised for web traffic is the same as asking a blind person to find their way on a printed roadmap.  It’s just not gonna happen!

3.    Blog on baby! A blog is without a doubt one of the all-time greatest tools you can use to bring traffic to your site.  Constant new, relevant, interesting and keyword-rich content helps the search engines fall in love with you and your site.  Blog technology is optimised for search engines, most are set up to notify the major searchers (Google and Yahoo! for starters) as soon as you post.

4.    Going on with keywords in your content. Keywords, relevant to you target market, are what search engines pick  up on.  Ok, there’s other stuff too, but this is a biggie.  And the keywords need to be used logically in your content.  You can’t just type your keywords over and over and over.  Search engines aren’t stupid.  Use them in your content, in written conversations on your blog.  Watch them be found.

5.    Affiliates and Joint Ventures. Piggybacking on someone else’s traffic.  Do a teleseminar with someone and promote to your newsletter list and theirs.  Sign up Affiliates to your site, you offer them free money if they promote your stuff to their list.  Totally win-win, as long as your stuff is good.  If it’s not – make it fantastic first and then go for the Affiliates.  Any good shopping cart (I love E-Junkie) will have an affiliate program with it.

6.    Guest posting. Piggybacking again.  You’re doing a favour for someone by taking the weight of writing a post off their shoulders, and in return you get a link to your site.  Yup, that’s a win-win again!

7.    Advertise yourself in your email and forum sigs. Include your tagline that tells people what you’re about and a clickable link to your website.  Don’t just have the link, you need to tell people exactly what you do, and make it as clear and memorable as possible!  This one won’t build a ton of traffic for you, however it gets your name and business known, and who knows when Joe Blogs will be talking to a friend, who talks to a friend, who talks to a friend who happens to know you and knows that you’re the perfect person to work with Joe blogs?

8.    Web 2.0. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc etc etc.  Join half a dozen online communities and build your networks there.  Be active in the online communities (but keep an eye on the time, they can suck up entire days in the blink of an eye!) Facebook and Twitter both have the functionality to automatically promote and link to your latest blog post.  Use the tools and make it easy for yourself.

9.    Promote! Promote! Promote! Continually.  Don’t quit.  Building a torrent of web traffic won’t happen in a day, and is unlikely to happen in a month.  Promotion builds momentum and it needs to be sustained.  A huge promotion this week and then nothing for a month is a surefire way to prevent any real action happening.

Obviously there are a lot more ways to drive traffic to your website, some are free, some require a lot of hard work, some require largish amounts of cash and a web designer.  This list is simply intended to get you thinking, and in a marketing mindset.  Everything you do with your busines is marketing.  Everything.

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“The money is in the list” is a really common saying among marketers, both on the internet and in bricks and mortar businesses.

Having a newsletter list, be it email or paper, is a really important factor in marketing for a Work At Home Mum business.  Your newsletter list is your means to communicate directly with your customers, let them get to know you, to offer specials and sales and keep in touch with your target market.  Without an email list, how do you do this?

You could use:

Blogging, Twittering, Facebook

Post details on your website

Pay for advertising

Advertise on forums and groups such as Yahoo or Google

Ask others to help promote you on their websites, blogs and newsletter lists

All these things are good and will help your business, however the drawback with them is that they are not necessarily directed at the people who are most likely to purchase your products.  The information is broadcast out to groups who may or may not be in your target market and may or may not be interested in hearing about you.

Having a newsletter list of people who have asked you to keep in touch with them – by requesting to be added to your list – gives you a direct line to your most likely customers and people who have bought from you previously.

The easiest way to manage a newsletter list is using an Autoresponder. There are a lot of different services out there, including both free and paid for. I love using Aweber, which is a paid-for autoresponder, as it’s easy to use, has great deliverability (ie: is approved so it won’t get caught in spam filters) and is very flexible. You can set up multiple lists, connect it with your shopping cart, use it for downloadable products, customise it etc. Can you tell I love it?

Every person on your newsletter list has actively requested to be there, preferably with a double opt-in selection (double opt-in – they request to be added to your list and then receive an automated email with a link to click on to confirm that they did indeed request to be added)

This means that they are interested in buying from you already!  Most people on your list may have already bought from you, and that increases the likelihood of them buying from you again.

Your newsletter list is your most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox!

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“The money is in the list” is a really common saying among marketers, both on the internet and in bricks and mortar businesses.

Having a newsletter list, be it email or paper, is a really important factor in marketing for a Work At Home Mum business.  Your newsletter list is your means to communicate directly with your customers, let them get to know you, to offer specials and sales and keep in touch with your target market.  Without an email list, how do you do this?

You could use:

Blogging, Twittering, Facebook

Post details on your website

Pay for advertising

Advertise on forums and groups such as Yahoo or Google

Ask others to help promote you on their websites, blogs and newsletter lists

All these things are good and will help your business, however the drawback with them is that they are not necessarily directed at the people who are most likely to purchase your products.  The information is broadcast out to groups who may or may not be in your target market and may or may not be interested in hearing about you.

Having a newsletter list of people who have asked you to keep in touch with them – by requesting to be added to your list – gives you a direct line to your most likely customers and people who have bought from you previously.

The easiest way to manage a newsletter list is using an Autoresponder. There are a lot of different services out there, including both free and paid for. I love using Aweber, which is a paid-for autoresponder, as it’s easy to use, has great deliverability (ie: is approved so it won’t get caught in spam filters) and is very flexible. You can set up multiple lists, connect it with your shopping cart, use it for downloadable products, customise it etc. Can you tell I love it?

Every person on your newsletter list has actively requested to be there, preferably with a double opt-in selection (double opt-in – they request to be added to your list and then receive an automated email with a link to click on to confirm that they did indeed request to be added)

This means that they are interested in buying from you already!  Most people on your list may have already bought from you, and that increases the likelihood of them buying from you again.

Your newsletter list is your most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox!

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How many times have you been on an email list that you wanted to unsubscribe from and had to jump through moving hoops, hold your breath for ten minutes, walk barefoot across flaming coals, cross your eyes and roll your tongue, just to remove yourself from an email listing?

Over the past few months I’ve worked at simplifying my inbox.  In the process, I’ve unsubscribed from over twenty different ezines!  I’ve seen every type of unsubscribe method, from the wonderfully easy and simple to the excruciatingly painful.

There are a few legal issues relating to online ezines; under the Cann-Spam Act and ICANN laws the list-owner is required to include a current postal address and a means to unsubscribe and/or change subscription details on every mailing that is sent out.  I am surprised at how many ezines and newsletters don’t include this information.

I was on one list from a fabric and craft supplier in the US.  In order to change or cancel my subscription information, the newsletter said to ring them during business hours.  Since I’m in Australia, there was no way I was going to phone the US just to request to be removed from their mailing list.  Especially since I would have to first work out the difference in our times zones and have to get up earlier than usual in order to phone the US during daylight hours.  Eventually I used their website contact page and requested that they manually remove me from the list.

Giving your subscribers control over their subscription is a really important aspect of customer service.  If you are running an online business, you may never interact with your customers face to face.  A negative online experience can mean that your business isn’t recommended to others, and may be spoken about negatively.

The major online newsletter and autoresponder services, such as Aweber, GetResponse, Constant Contact etc, have been set up to automatically comply with anti-spam laws.  They also have policies in place to ensure that their users comply as well.  If you’re running your ezine from your own computer and manually maintaining your subscription list, you are still required to comply with the relevant laws.

This can be as simple as always including your address -preferably a PO Box rather than your home address – and a sentence to the effect of “If you would like to unsubscribe from this ezine please reply to this email with ‘Unsubscribe’ in the subject line” .

And the final reason why you should make it easy for people to unsubscribe is because if they’re looking to unsubscribe then they’re probably not reading your ezine anyway.  By unsubscribing they’re actually doing you a favour by freeing up your list from people who aren’t valuing the information that you’re offering.  This keeps your list full of people who are interested in what you have to say and are more likely to pass your newsletter on or buy from you.  And that’s a good thing!