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Myth #1 – It all starts with a great web site.

A flashy splash page with gigantic lifestyle photos will not draw consumers into your site by itself. Your Company needs to have a strong brand identity with well defined services. Even the most attractive of websites won’t convert visitors into customers if you can’t describe your professional specialty and specify the core benefits your work provides for your clients.

Myth #2 – Do whatever it takes to build your email list.

There’s no question that a substantial opt-in mailing list is a valuable marketing asset, but the quality of names on your list is much more important than the quantity. Acquiring names through giveaways of other people’s material, trading lists with joint venture partners, or purchasing them from a vendor rarely provides qualified buyers truly interested in your services. You have worked hard to build a credible name for your company, why tarnish your reputation?

Myth #3 – More traffic translates to increased profits.

The only result that more traffic to your website guarantees you is increased bandwidth use by your web host. Before breaking the bank on excessive amounts of PPC and banner ads for an unproven site you should mercilessly critique it and invite existing customers to do the same. Consider it constructive criticism and take the time to fine tune your site before diving into a massive campaign.

Myth #4 – Killer copywriting is the secret to sales.

Your Internet marketing persona should reflect the same professionalism as the work you do with your clients. You should avoid gimmicky “limited time only” and “buy one get one free” catch phrases. Those appeals are best left to the late night infomercial salesmen. You are a professional who’s copy should inspire trust and brand loyalty.

Myth #5 – Just follow the magic formula and you will get rich.

There is no magical panacea to cure your internet marketing woes. The secret to landing clients is what it always has been. You need to build relationships and get people to know, like, and trust you. Building long-term, trusting relationships with prospective clients and referral sources will win you business on the web.

When you have a strong list of subscribers who have agreed that you send emails to, you have a powerful marketing tool that can be leveraged over and over again.

Sending emails with the sole purpose of creating a relationship with your past, current, and prospective customers you have a valuable tool that will ensure repeat business. You can drive them to your website or different landing pages, heighten brand awareness, they can interact with you, and most importantly strengthen customer relationships.

Here are our top five:

#1 Emails should go out regularly. Send them out at least once a month. Even if you have sent out previous emails and did not receive any response, they may still be interested in reading what you have to say.

#2 Email useful information and tips. Focus on providing information to your subscribers with more than what you sell. Give them something that they are interested in reading and that may be useful to them. By doing this, you are going to become a valued resource, and when it is time for them to purchase your services or goods, they are already going to trust you and look to you for answers.

#3 Confirm that you are getting through to your subscribers and track results. Although graphics, flash animators, and videos look great; your email may get blocked by spam filters. By leaving out this information, you have a higher chance of getting through and then you can drive your readers to your website or targeted landing pages.

#4 Create a way for your readers to respond or interact with you. You can do this by having a “contact me” link or a forum section. Any way you can get your reader to be involved only creates a stronger relationship.

#5 Build personalized communication through targeted campaigns. Specific content and

messages that interest your customers are very important to include so that they look forward to receiving your next email. You want to appeal to them and their interests so that you are seen as a valuable resource. By tracking the results you can target your information.

Remember, you don’t have to profit from your email. You are trying to create a relationship with your reader that will grow into something more in the future. If they feel like they know you and have a relationship with you, they are more likely going to buy your services or goods rather than your competitors’.

Often times we get caught up in the monthly task of getting our email newsletters out. Here are a couple of tips to make them more valuable:

1. Poll your clients or prospects on a hot industry topic. Get them involved and do a follow up to this poll.
2. Ask subscribers to submit a business challenge to be answered in the next issue. Schedule a time to interview the subscriber and provide feedback to the business challenge.
3. Tell a recent client success story, but more importantly what problem was overcome. Back it up with real world business numbers.
4. Segment your current subscriber list into clients, prospects and vendors. Create separate offers and or communications to each audience. More relevancy equals often times leads to a higher response rate.
5. Offer a value add cross promotion with a partner. We saw a great mailer the other week. A local window covering company partnered with a organization company. The window covering company sent out a customer appriciation letter, which included a 25% off coupon for the home organization services. Brilliant!

Take action and turn your email marketing into profit generating results.

We were recently working with a client who was blasting out to 50k subscribers. Over lunch, we were discussing all the steps they were taking prior to sending out the email blast. The content was very relevant to the audience, but the open rate was around 5-10%. Not very good!

After digging a little bit more, I realized that they were not testing different subject lines prior to sending the email blast. The subject line of your email is free advertising. It should be compelling, could have a call to action, a promotion or a the title of a headline article. The existing subject was "Date, Company Name, Newsletter. Not very compelling to say the least. We began brainstorming on the different subject lines they could test. Keyword here is - TEST.

Prior to sending to 50k subscribers we recommended they test 3 or 4 subject lines with a smaller portion of the list. This measures what subject line is resulting in the higher open rate. This way the official newsletter launch date is 2 times more effective when it comes to the open rate of the actual email.  This was pretty important  to the client  as they have some high paying advertisers in the newsletter.

So in closing, try something different when it comes to your subject lines. Test with a small sub group of your subscriber list. We’ll talk more later on how you can segment your lists in order to send even more relevant copy.

Chow!