Email Marketing Tips: How Often to Email Your List?

Now that you know how to build your list, it’s time to talk about how to stay in touch with that list, i.e. how often to email them and what to say to them.

There are several theories on that, but you already know that one size never fits all when it comes down to online marketing in general and email marketing in particular.

In this post, you’ll find some options for you to look at as well as learn how I personally handle my opt-in email marketing list.

Let’s start by talking about the different ways you can stay in touch with your list.

Email Marketing Tip #1: HOW to Stay in Touch

There are four basic ways to do it.

1.   Autoresponder only

There are plenty of list builders who rely exclusively on putting together a series of emails and sending them out to their list at designated intervals.

Some have a handful of messages to send out, others really get into it and come up with dozens upon dozens of emails that they spit out to their subscribers like a well-oiled machine.

But what happens when the pre-written messages run out?

My opinion of it:

Unsubscribe. That’s what I do with such lists.

I don’t need any more stale info in my inbox; I am interested in staying in touch with a person, not their autoresponder.

2.   Sales-oriented autoresponder and live messages

These are the messages that do nothing but sell, sell, sell – done both through autoresponder and live when there is a new product launch – and there’s never a shortage of those.

My opinion of it:

The worst thing you can do to your list.

Money is NOT in the list. It’s in your RELATIONSHIP with your list.

Hard to build any kind of relationship through push and shove.

The only reason I stay on a couple of such lists is because I want to be aware of what’s going on in the product market, see if anything catches my eyes to test it and let you know what I think of it, like I did in these posts:

• Keep Your Money, Honey: Which Internet Marketing Products Are Not Worth Their Salt
• Best Internet Marketing Tools Best Marketers Use

3.   Autoresponder and live messages

This model is great for beginner email list builders.

Why?

It gives you the security of autoresponder sequence in place, say once per week, so that you know that at least one email is taken care of on a weekly basis.

On the other hand, it gives you the freedom to practice actually interacting with your audience and writing live broadcast with more current information in focus.

My opinion of it:

Absolutely nothing wrong going that route, especially, as I already mentioned, for the beginners, but also for bloggers who have hard time being consistent with their email marketing.

4.   Live broadcasts ONLY

This model is a tough one for most list builders, yet in my opinion, it happens to be the most effective one.

Why?

It encourages interaction.

Interaction = Responsive List = More Trust = More Potential Sales

I do understand it’s not for everyone, but I do encourage you to work towards it.

That’s the model I use exclusively on Traffic Generation Cafe.

Once you subscribe and get my free SEO report, you get two emails from me: the first one will tell you what to expect from being a part of my  list and that this would be the only canned email you shall receive from me, and the second one will be a personal greeting from me.

Yes, you heard me right: I PERSONALLY welcome every single subscriber to my list.

• Personal Internet Marketing: From Zero to Hero in 4 Short Months

Email Marketing Tip #2: How Often to Email

Boy, that’s where the opinions abound.

I’ve heard extremes like every day to once per month.

Problem: too many emails – overwhelmed subscribers and high unsubscribe rate; too few emails – they won’t know who you are and will mark your emails as spam.

Neither one of these options is what we aspire to achieve, needless to say.

For me, 2-3 times per week is a sweet spot.

However, as you learn from my only canned email you’ll ever get from me, it really depends on my mood, whether I have anything worthy to say, or even how busy I am with projects.

But you know what, my list is very forgiving and my open rates are about 40%, which is pretty good. I bet it has something to do with the kind of content I provide to my subscribers.

Speaking of which:

Email Marketing Tip #3: What to Write About

There are there main email marketing content models:

1.   Send subscribers to your published blog posts

Many A-listers do that.

I don’t like it.

If your list wants to hear all about your new blog posts, they should subscribe to your RSS feed, which I highly recommend you do right now for Traffic Generation Cafe and don’t miss a piece of the actionable and practical advice I offer on this blog.

Plus, there’s a slight problem here if you publish a lot – too many emails per week or too many links to too many posts per email.

Either one doesn’t work for me.

2.   Offer exclusive tips

That’s a great way to go.

I am sure you come across some great little gems as you read other blogs that make you say “what a great tip”. Well, don’t just think it; write it down and send it to your subscribers in your next live broadcast.

Your list wants to see value and exclusivity; otherwise, what’s the point of being on your list to begin with?

3.   Hybrid between the two

That’s what I usually do.

Every once in a while I do want to make sure my email marketing list knows of a great post I recently published that I know would be of great help to them, but they might not necessarily see otherwise.

But for the most part, I focus on the great tips my head is usually full of from reading and studying my niche so much.

And here lies one of my not-so-secret secrets: more input produces more output – the more you read, the more knowledge you’ll have to tap into when writing your own blog posts and emails.

Email Marketing Tip #4: To Sell or Not To Sell

Unless you blog for charity, occasionally marketing your affiliate or your own products to your email list is a must-do – that’s the whole idea of having a list to begin with.

I won’t go into this too much, for you very well know that providing tons of value will compensate for occasional product offers and will bring in sales because:

Interaction = Responsive List = More Trust = More Potential Sales

Marketing Takeaway

There are many right ways to do email marketing.

As long as you stay away from the wrong ones and figure out which of the right ones would work for YOUR business in YOUR niche, you’ll have a list that wants to open and read your emails and click on those links.

Start Your Own Email Marketing List for Only $1.00

If you haven’t started building your list yet, let me tell you – you are missing out big time. My list is number one reason I make the money I make with this blog and have such a strong readership.

Aweber is the best email autoresponder I have even used. And I am not the only one. Many A-list bloggers I know also use it for their businesses. This segmentation feature is just one tiny example of what you can do to improve your email marketing with Aweber.

Aweber offers a $1 trial month for all new customers. You’ll have access to all features a paid account is entitled to: unlimited lists, email campaigns, automatic follow-ups, broadcasts, and many, many more. If after 30 days you don’t like them, just let them know and Aweber will give you your $1 back. Guaranteed.

Image credit: http://cheezburger.com/

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