One of the best ways to build your online business is through a mailing list and email marketing. It is very efficient for businesses of any size. Also, it is crucial to keep your customers and prospects updated on your business news.

Email Marketing Is Easy to Leverage

It is one of the easiest and fastest ways to harness the power of the internet for your business. All you need to do is compose an email, customize it to suit the reader (their first name or last name), and click the broadcast button to reach thousands of people instantly. Within seconds, everybody on your mailing list will know all about your latest business news. This includes your promotions, upcoming events, new inventory ad much more.

A Mailing List is Highly Scalable

For an ‘offline’ business, the more customers you have, the busier you are. In email marketing, however, it is much easier because regardless of the size of your mailing list, whether it is 100 or 10,000, all you need to do is click broadcast and everyone on the list gets notified. All for the same effort; it takes one click.

A Mailing List is Highly Targeted

One of the reasons why email marketing is highly effective at getting leads is because the recipient of the email gets a targeted promotion seemingly created just for them. You are marketing directly to the customer through their personal mailbox. Not only will you grab their attention firmly, but they will also tend to respond with the right buyers’ mind-set (unlike other advertising where the buyer might not be in the right frame of mind at the time they are exposed).

Email Marketing Is Personal

Autoresponders allow you to customize the email in such a way that it allows you to connect with the subscriber individually. The more personalized your email, the better the result (treat it as though you are writing to your best friend).

You can automate many tasks with your autoresponder. For every new opt-in subscriber, you can time your emails so that you can build a relationship with every new opt-in subscriber. You decide what to send to them when to send it to, and the frequency between each email.

Email marketing acts as an excellent way to pre-sell your products and services. You might not be able to cram a long sales letter into your email, but at least you can pre-sell your subscriber and lead them to your blog or website to check out what you have to offer whether it is information on featured boats, your sales team contact info, or detailed description on your services. This will make them more open to your business and potentially turn them into customers.

As you can see email marketing can be very effective.  Next, we will discuss some of the techniques you can use to build stronger bonds, increase your credibility and increase your opt-in list response with relative ease.

Building Relationships

Developing Competitive Edge

One of the most important things you must do to achieve success online is to build a solid relationship with your subscriber. Building a relationship is important because it can make the difference between making a sale and losing it to your competitor. Customers feel more comfortable buying from the business they trust and have a relationship with.

That is how email marketing will work for you. Online marketing is very competitive and you will have a lot of competition from other businesses in your niche. So when two marketers are promoting the same product, having a strong rapport with your subscribers will give you a competitive edge and the sales will come to you rather than them.

One of the best ways to build relationships with your subscriber is to strengthen the rapport between you and your customer.

Here are a few ways to achieve that:

  • Keep in touch with your mailing list often. Don’t mail them only when you need to promote a product or service.
  • Ask about their needs and concerns. Use questionnaires and surveys to get them involved. Ask them what they want you to provide for them to help them with whatever problem your niche solves.
  • Send them gifts sometimes. It could be in the form of free reports, tutorials, checklists, discount coupons or even free samples.
  • Be personal. Let them see your human side or your personal life. Interact with them in a respectful, personable way.
  • Be educational. When you impart something of value to your subscribers, they will see you as an expert and will be more inclined to listen to what you say.

Achieving Stronger Credibility

Establish Yourself As An Authority

If you want to succeed in online marketing, you must be able to instill stronger credibility with your subscribers by establishing yourself as an authority in your niche market.

For example, whether you are a boat dealer or a boat rental business, you must let your subscribers know about your credibility in your field either before or after they opt-in to your mailing list.

Here are a few tips on establishing your credibility:

Wherever possible share your qualifications and list which professional trade bodies you are a member of. List the type of clients you have dealt with, include photos, preferably before and after pictures. Relate experiences of how you have helped your clients.

Let others tell the story. It would be better to let others sing your praises – especially in the form of testimonials and reviews.

Use E-courses To Build Credibility Over Time

One of the ways you can build your credibility over time is to write an E-course or a newsletter that will be sent to your subscriber’s email over a period of days or weeks. It must be something educational – something that will establish you as an expert on the subject.

You can configure your autoresponder to send an E-course once every day, every two days or as a weekly newsletter. So long as the subscriber reads your educational material over a period of time, you can slowly work your way into the heart of your subscriber and stamp a firm impression in their minds.

Increasing Your Mailing List Opt-In Rates

Crafting An Excellent Landing Page

If you want to increase your opt-in rates, here are a few principles you must apply to your landing page:

  • Use compelling arrows to inspire visitors to take action. Graphics and aesthetics make all the difference!
  • Create an eye-catching E-cover for the special report or E-book you are giving away. If you are giving away an audio Interview, you can show a picture that displays an audio CD or DVD to increase the perceived value of the product people are downloading in exchange for their email address.
  • Use a powerful headline to grab people’s attention.
  • Use checkboxes to inspire people to get involved with the benefits of your free product.
  • Remember to add a disclaimer below the opt-in box to reassure people that they are not getting spammed or that their email address will not be used for unscrupulous purposes.

Common Mistakes Some Businesses Make

If you want to build a solid relationship through emails, you must be very careful NOT to commit these email marketing ‘sins’:

Spamming! Never ‘spam’ your mailing list. Even though they have given you permission to email them, that doesn’t mean that you can send them emails and sales pitches on a daily basis. Learn to send emails at strategic intervals.

Mailing them only when you are selling something. The reason people join your mailing list is that they want something of value in return. If you are only selling, they will fail to see the value you offer and will unsubscribe.

Rushing Emails. When you are doing a promotion, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is that you rush your emails to the point that the mistakes are spotted by most of your subscribers. Having too many mistakes in your email will make you look unprofessional. Try to avoid mistakes such as spelling a person’s name wrongly or having the word {first_name} appear instead of the subscriber’s real name.

Not sending anything to your mailing list for a long time. The opposite of spamming. If you don’t keep in touch with your subscribers for a long time, they will tend to forget who you are. And that will severely damage the relationship between you and your subscriber.

Not relating to your subscribers. When every new product or service launches, there is a tendency to mail your subscribers all the time while forgetting that the product doesn’t relate to the subscribers at all. You don’t want to sell a boat rental membership to someone who recently bought a boat.

What You Need to Know Before Sending Your Next Email…

If you don’t know how to get your subscribers to open your email, you will generate dismal results from your email marketing campaigns no matter how big or small your mailing list is.

It is normal for Internet users to subscribe to multiple mailing lists. It’s also normal for your subscriber to have an inbox full of emails from the mailing lists they are subscribed to. If your email headline doesn’t grab your subscriber’s attention, there’s a 95% chance that your email will get deleted.

As an experienced agency, we can help you achieve great results with your email marketing campaign. We know how to write compelling headlines and engaging content that increases customer loyalty and makes your subscribers look forward to receiving your emails.

Contact us today at 888-928-4587 or go to boatmarketingpros.com/contact-us to find out more details. We look forward to hearing from you!