If you’re an affiliate marketer who uses MailChimp, you really do need to read this article. There are terms and conditions that aren’t very well known by many people, that actually state you can’t use MailChimp if you promote affiliate products of any type. I know, not cool right? Read on below for more details and to find out what you can do about this.

What Exactly Does MailChimp Say On This Matter?

If you look at the MailChimp terms of service, section F states:

Also, there are some industries that send certain types of content that result in higher than normal bounce rates and abuse complaints, which in turn jeopardize the deliverability of our entire system. No offense intended, but because we must ensure the highest delivery rates possible for all our customers, we do not allow businesses that offer these types of services, products, or content:

It then goes on to list a number of industries not allowed to use their email marketing software, one of those industries / people types is affiliate marketers.

Why Doesn’t MailChimp Affiliate Marketing Of Affiliate Products?

MailChimp don’t want people promoting affiliated products through their website as they worry that having their emails marked as spam a lot will cause their delivery rates to fall greatly.

So does this mean that if you promote affiliate products but don’t get marked as spam much you can continue to use the old monkey? Well, officially, no. You’ll still be going against their terms of service, which is cause for dismissal on it’s own.

Having said that, a lot of marketers use Mail Chimp without knowing they aren’t allowed to. Some do so without ever getting banned from using the service, most likely as they don’t get marked as spam that much. I’m guessing if your account did it would get manually reviewed, and probably removed.

What Will Happen If They Catch You Selling Affiliate Products?

If they catch you selling affiliated products, they can ban your account without any warning. This means you will lose all your current subscribers and not be able to get them back. This has happened to many people before, and will most likely continue to happen as they get more strict on this kind of thing.

What Can Affiliate Marketers Use Instead Of MailChimp?

If you decide to stop using MailChimp, there are a number of other options available to you. Our favourite is Aweber. They fully allow email marketing for affiliates, as long as you don’t spam your list (Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway). That’s our email marketing tip.

MailChimp Affiliate Marketing Conclusion

I understand where MailChimp are coming from with not wanting to let people ruin the quality of their service, but I think banning all people who promote affiliate products on their site is more then a bit extreme. I can understand if they didn’t allow people who actually sent affiliate links in their emails, but even if they’ve got only one or two affiliate links in their whole site? That’s just unfair.

MailChimp has come leaps and bounds in recent times, and has become a strong contender for Aweber’s crown. But if a lot of people knew about their no sponsored links rule, I’m sure a lot of people would have cancelled their subscription a long time ago.

So can affiliate marketers use MailChimp? Well we wouldn’t recommend it, and officially no. For people looking for an alternative, I recommend Aweber.

Want to make your business stand out from the rest? Want a way to increase subscribers without doing too much extra work? Then why not set up a short course that visitors to your website can take and learn from…

The short course is one of the most underused methods of getting new mailing list subscribers. It has a high conversion rate, and it delivers a lot of quality to your customers. So why wouldn’t you set one up?

How Much Work Is Involved In Delivering A Short Course?

One of the main reasons why people don’t offer short courses to their customers as a sign up incentive is because they feel it’ll be a lot of work to set up. This however couldn’t be further from the truth. As with all autoresponder messages, you only have to write the information once and it will be able to work for you for years to come.

What To Include In Your Short Course

In your short to medium term course, you want to offer something of value to the customer. You want to teach them something they didn’t already know, or at least refresh them on a area of your choice. So for example, let’s say your website is all about fixing cars. You may want to offer a short basic course on the theory behind car fixing. Each day you could offer a look at what to do and what not to do when approaching a car to fix. You can also include resources on where to get certain car parts, and anything else you think will be useful to your customers. You can also include up-sales and affiliate links so you can make money from this free course.

Even if you struggle a bit to think of an idea of what to offer initially, if you know your industry well you should be able to think of something people would want to learn about your area of expertise. Once you know what would appeal to them, give them what they want.

How Long Should Your Short Course Be?

This totally depends on you. Don’t think you have to have a set length of time for your course to run, simply make it run as long or as short as required. If you can get all your information in manageable portions in three days, then go for three days. If you need seven days to deliver your course, then go for seven days.

How To Deliver Your Short Course Using An Autoresponder

Delivering a short course couldn’t be easier. You can use your autoresponder to deliver the information over the course’s duration. To do this, set up a new autoresponder message in your email marketing program. Make it send the same day people have signed up. After this, create a new autoresponder message and set it to go off the next day. Keep doing this, with each new lesson of your course going off the day after the last. At the end, you’ll have a short course that will be delivered to your email subscribers over time via your autoresponder.

When you’re putting together your email marketing campaign, there is one very important factor you need to think about: How often you should email your list.

Email marketing can be a powerful promotional tool, but if you do it wrong it can do more harm then good to your business. Email your subscribers too much with uninteresting information and they will swiftly unsubscribe from your list. Email them too little and they are bound to forget about you. So how often should you send them your messages?

Finding The Right Email Frequency

In all honesty, there is no one right answer for this question. Different businesses will be able to get away with emailing their mailing list subscribers at different rates, it just depends on the type of emails you are providing.

If for example you are a stocks company and you offer people tips in exchange for their email address, your subscribers may expect tips on a daily basis. Give them any less and they may unsubscribe from your list, or subscribe to someone else’s list as well.

If on the other hand you run a yearly event, you won’t want to message them anywhere near as much. People may have subscribed to be informed on when they can purchases tickets for your next event, so you messaging them every couple days all year round is not what they want. Again, they’d most likely unsubscribe and find another way to find out when the tickets are out.

It really does depend on your audience, how often do they want to receive communications from you, and how often you have got something of real value to offer them. Never email your list just for the sake of it, only ever do so when you have some good information that’ll truly benefit them.

Following The Signs

So let’s say you try out a email frequency. You decide to email people twice a week and see how it goes. Next up, you have to look out for any clues that tells you if this is too little or too much. For example, if you have a lot of people unsubscribing in the first few weeks of their subscription, then you’re mailing your list too much (Hence why people are getting themselves off your list). That, or you’re not offering anything of real value to them.

If on the other hand you’re getting a lot of people emailing you asking additional questions and wanting more information, then maybe you could increase your emailing frequency. That, or include more information in your emails. You could also add a link to some extra reading at the end of each email, pointing your reader in the right direction for additional help.

Still Not Sure How Often You Should Email Your List?

If you’re still not sure how often to email your mailing list, I’d suggest you email your mailing list once a week. For many businesses this is a good amount of time. It’s often enough for you to stay on their mind, but not so much that you begin to annoy them. From there, you can start to get a feel if you should increase this frequency, decrease it, or keep it the same.

You will find that different emailing frequencies will work for different types of email marketing campaigns. That being said, with a bit of trial and error (And some logical thinking before hand) you should be able to get a emailing schedule that will suit your subscribers nicely. Now work on finding out how often to email your list.

When it comes to email marketing, one very important thing you’ll have to decide is whether or not you will set up an autoresponder campaign. While I largely promote the use of autoresponders on this website, there are some instances where there would be not much point. In this article, I will be looking at some of the situations where it would and would not be good to run an autoresponder campaign.

Don’t Use An Autoresponder Campaign If:

• Your information is time sensitive.
  If the information your customers want is time sensitive, there is no point sending it out days, months or even years late. If the information you deal with is of this nature, it is best to send out manual (Mass) emails as and when you need.
• You don’t have any useful information to give.
  There is no point sending your customers communications for the sake of it, if you’re not adding value to their lives, then don’t send them anything. If you send them a lot of rubbish emails, they will start considering them as spam and ignore or block them. If however you email them less frequently but when you do it’s golden information, they are likely to remain a customer for a much longer period of time.
• Your views change regularly.
  If your views on certain subjects change from month to month, sending out all your old views would be misleading and confusing for your subscribers. Because of this, it would be best to send out emails with your latest stance point manually.

Use An Autoresponder Series If:

• You have a lot of valuable information to give.
  If there is a lot of information your customer will find valuable about your area of expertise, it could be a good idea to use an autoresponder.
• You want people to see all your important information.
  With a website, people often look at one or two pages, but fail to see everything you have to offer. By using autoresponders however, you can make sure they receive all the important information you want them to see.
• You want structured reading.
  Autoresponders are ideal if you want your customers or site visitors to read your information in a certain order. As you can determine when each email is sent, making them follow through in the correct order is easy.

Should You Set Up A Autoresponder Campaign?

Using the above points, you should be able to figure out if using an autoresponder program is a good idea for you. If giving your subscribers regular information will benefit them, then it’s worth doing. After all, if you make them happy, they will remain your customers for a good while to come. Good luck setting up your autoresponder campaign, if you have any questions please ask them in the comments.

If you want to build your mailing list in a speedy manner, it’s important to capture as many of your website’s visitors as possible via your opt in form. You opt in form is what allows you to collect your website visitor’s information, so in essence is one of the most important features on your website…

It is no good at simply putting up your opt in form and expecting people to sign up however, there are certain steps you need to take in order to make sure you get as many subscribers as possible. In this article, we are going to look at those steps. From where to put your form, to the actual opt in form’s layout and much more. So read on, and apply these tips to maximise your website’s own subscriber opt ins.

Opt In Form Placement

One of the most important aspects of opt in form optimisation, is where you place your opt in forms. There is no point having an opt in form on your website if it’s placed on a single page which no one ever goes to. Needless to say, you won’t end up getting any subscribers at all. Because of this there are a few things I want to say about your opt in form placement:

• You need your form on multiple pages.
  If you’re serious about collecting people’s email addresses, you need to ensure you give as many people as possible the chance to be a subscriber. Preferably, you need to have your opt in box on every page of your website. This is because not every one enters your website via the same page. The first page they may land on may be your home page, but it may just as easily be on one of your articles or other inner pages.
  Now imagine you only had a opt in box on your home page, how many subscribers would you end up missing out on? Quite a few from what I’ve seen, as most websites have the majority of traffic going to their inner pages.
• You need multiple opt in forms.
  It is a good idea to consider putting more then one opt in form on each page of your website. This is because different people want to take actions at different stages, and not making it easy for them to do this will mean you lose out on subscribers.

On many of my websites, I like to display an opt in box in three places. Each one serves to capture a reader’s email address based on what stage of reading they are at. The following are the three places my opt in forms are placed:

1. When someone first visits my websites, I use Popup Domination to present them with an opt in form and a quick note on what they receive if they enter their email address. This has at least doubled the amount of subscribers I have received on all the sites I’ve used it on, and some times even tripled them. The things is, while not every one signs up there and then, they’re made aware of the option and are more likely to sign up to your list later via one of the other opt in forms.
2. The second place I like to place a optin form is in the top right hand side of my website (If you’re using WordPress, then at the top of your sidebar). This is proven to be a highly visible area, and one that many visitors are likely to notice. If a visitor has looked around your site enough and decided they want to be kept up to date with what you have to say, this is most likely the opt in box they will use.
3. Lastly, I like to put a final opt in form underneath all of my posts. If someone has read through to the end of your post, there is a good chance they like what you have to say. This is the perfect time to ask for their email address, and let them know they can get access to more great information if they sign up.

The combination of these three opt in form positions is a lot more effective then using just one. If they over look one opt in box as they aren’t ready to give up their email address at that stage, there are still more opt in boxes to catch them when they are ready. If you want as many opt in leads as possible, I suggest you use all three positions on every page on your website (Bar pages like your contact page, about page and any sales pages etc).

Opt In Form Colour

One thing that is often over looked is the colour of your opt in form. You want people to notice and be attracted to your form, so making it a bold colour is a good idea. There are two main ways to do this, by making the actual background colour of the box stand out from the rest of your website, or by having a image of say a free incentive or general picture.

I personally prefer to go down the image route. If you aren’t offering an incentive to your mailing list subscribers however, then use the boxes’ colour to make it stand out. You will want it a different colour from the rest of your website (Or at least a different stand out shade) so it instantly catches people’s eye as soon as they load the page.

Opt In Form Size

Another thing you need to think about is the size of your opt in form. Do you want a small to medium sized one in your sidebar, or do you want a big one at say the top of your page?

When it comes to the size of your opt in form, there is no right or wrong answer. It will all depend on the layout of your website, and at which stage you plan to catch people’s email addresses. In different situations both big and small optin forms can work, so I’d advise you to test both and see which converts best for you.

I will say however that you shouldn’t make your opt in box too small. Once again it’s all about visibility, if people don’t see it then they won’t know they have the option of filling it out. This will of course lead to no mailing list subscribers. Don’t however make your form big just so people see it, it’s often better to make your sign up box stand out by the use of colours and images (See the previous section for more information on this).

Opt In Form Layout

The layout of your optin box is the next thing you have to think about. How are you going to structure all the elements of the form?

In my experience, it’s often best to have something eye catching first. If the first thing people see is form fields, they’re a lot more likely to think ‘work’ and ignore it. If they see a cool looking ebook or picture however, their eye will be drawn and will be more likely interested in seeing what you have to offer.

Underneath your picture, it’s a good idea to tell people what they will get when they sign up to your mailing list. Keep this short and sweet, you want to get them clued up and ready to fill in the form while they’re still excited. If you give them a long description, not only will you take up a lot of room in your sidebar / pop up box, you may also lose their attention and lose a sign up. So keep the writing to no more then two or three short lines, or maybe even a couple of bullet points.

Finally, you want to add the actual form elements. This is the place where they can enter their details and sign up to your mailing list. You will of course need to add a form field for people to enter their email address in, but any other form element is optional and dependent on the information you want to collect from subscribers.

If you’re using a pop up form such as Popup Domination, the layout is already sorted for you so you’ll only need to add the form’s code.

Test Your Opt In Method

There are a number of things you need to think about when it comes to opt in form optimisation. While this guide has set out a number of proven methods to optimising your optin box, you need to remember that different things will work for different websites. Because of this, it is important you test different opt in methods and stick with the one that works best for you. Only when you test enough different methods will you maximise the opt in leads you receive.

So get started with optimising your opt in form and let us know how you get on in the comments. Otherwise, check out the other email marketing tips on our website.

P.S. If you enjoyed that post, then check the post ‘Two Little Known Secrets To Strengthening Your Mailing List‘. This is a guest post I done for Daily Blog Tips, a website full of advice on succeeding in blogging.

Good luck with your opt in form optimisation, don’t forget to let us know how it goes below.

Want to learn how to build a list that is responsive and has the potential to pull in thousands? No need to pay for any guides, we’ve listed everything you need to know about building a list below free of charge! So read on and get to list building right away…

Have Your Opt In Form In A Prominent Position

The opt in box is your number one tool for building a list. You use this to collect people’s information, so it would make sense to put it in a place where it’s easy for people to see. Studies have shown that the best place to put your opt in form is either at the top of the page to the right, or at the top right hand side of a sidebar. This is where people’s eyes tend to glance when they first visit a website, so putting it in one of those positions is sure to get your box noticed.

Wherever you decide to put your opt in box, always make sure it’s ‘above the fold’ (It can be seen as soon as someone visits your website). Studies have shown that the majority of actions on a website are taken even before the user scrolls down the page, so having your opt in box where all the action is happening will defiantly increase subscribers.

Another factor you should consider when building a mailing list is the size of your opt in box. You don’t want it to be so small that people don’t really notice it, but you don’t want it to be so big it gets in the way. I’d advice you to make it fit in with your current side bar, just make it stand out by using different colours or by making it look attractive (More on what you can do to make it look attractive in the next section).

What To Do Now:

Get a opt in box from Aweber and put it above the fold on your website. Make sure it’s easy to see and is ‘stand out attractive’.

Give An Incentive For People To Subscribe To Your List

One of the best things you can do when list building is giving people a real reason to subscribe. While you can simply put up a opt in form and hope people subscribe to you for the sake of it, it’s often better to give them an incentive for joining your list. And example of an incentive you can give is a weekly newsletter, or a free gift of some sort.

I’ve used both before, and I always tend to gain more subscribers when I give away a free gift such as a short ebook or a song. This is because I make these things appear to be valuable, so when people realise they can get them for free they have no qualms about giving up their email address. Once they’re signed up I also send them weekly emails with interesting news and more freebies to keep them on the list.

What I like about offering a ebook as an incentive is that it’s attractive and can catch people’s eyes. If you have a picture of a ebook cover with the words ‘Free’ somewhere next to it, you’re going to have more people paying attention to what you’re offering. And if that ebook is about what you’re readers want, more subscribers too.

When offering an incentive to potential subscribers, make sure it’s clear what the incentive is. To do this, next to your opt in box you may want to write: “Enter your details below to be sent exclusive weekly tips and tricks about *Enter your niche here*”. Or if you’re offering a free ebook, write “Sign up to our mailing list to receive a free copy of the *Insert title here* ebook. Learn how to master *Enter your niche here* now”.

These are just examples, but notice how both of them have a ‘call to action’. By call to action I mean asking them to take an action (In this case entering their details into the form). Studies have shown that if you simply ask people to do something they’re more likely to do it, so ask people to enter their email address and you’ll get more people subscribing.

Important Tip:

If you’re going to offer a free gift, make sure it’s one that doesn’t alienate any one in your niche. For example, if you run a website for musicians a good ebook would be “How to make money from your music”. All musicians wouldn’t mind making more money from their music. A bad idea for an ebook would be “How to make classic punk rock songs”. While there will be people that will be interested in this and sign up to get the book, there will be a lot of people not interested in this type of music and not sign up because they don’t want the ebook. While the weekly newsletter you would’ve sent them may have been of use to them, the initial offer would have already scared them off.

What To Do Now:

Create an incentive such as a ebook, a short course, or a weekly newsletter. Once it’s ready, implement it in your autoresponder and put the offer up on your website. If you’ve decided to make a ebook, make sure you include an attractive cover for the book. You can easily make covers using eCover Software Pro, or get someone to design one for you.

Use A Lightbox Or Pop Up Box

One of the things I use to build a list on many of my sites is a lightbox (Also known as a pop up box). Using this has more then tripled the amount of subscribers I get in some cases, so is a valuable tool for any one trying to build a list.

The reason why light boxes are so effective is because they’ll hard to avoid. If someone is looking at your website, they may only be focused on the article in front of them. Because of this, they may subconsciously ignore anything in your sidebar, that includes your opt in form and free incentive. If however you’ve got a pop up box which smoothly appears to them in the middle of the screen, they’ve no choice but to take notice. From here they can either subscribe if you have an attractive and beneficial incentive (Which you should have) or simply close the pop up and not see it again.

The key with using a lightbox is using it in moderation. If you have it popping up every time some one opens your page or visits you’re site, you’re going to annoy a lot of people and ensure people won’t be visiting your site again. If you only let it pop up once a week however, it won’t get in people’s way but will still dramatically increase your sign ups.

The lightbox I use is Popup Domination. This is because it comes pre-loaded with attractive designs (No one’s going to take notice if the pop up looks ugly and unprofessional) and is fully customisable.

* Popup Domination example

So what’s a good way to use light boxes? Well, I personally like to make my pop up only appear once a week for people who haven’t subscribed. The reason for this is it’s not enough to scare users away, but is just enough to let people know your offer exists. An even I they don’t sign up when they first see your pop up, they’ve been made aware it exists and may come back at a later date and sign up. Once they’re subscribed they’ll never see the pop up again.

What To Do Now:

Get a lightbox (I recommend Popup Domination) and implement it on your website. Add your incentive to it, match the colours to your website, and set it to appear once a week to people that haven’t already subscribed to your list. This will greatly speed up your list building.

Make Sure You Use A Double Opt In Form

One thing you want to bare in mind when building a list, is you don’t just want a whole load of subscribers. After all, there’s no point of having a million people on your list if none of them are opening your emails.

One good way you can cut down on the amount of ‘dead’ emails on your list, is by using a double opt in form. A double opt in form is a form which people have to double opt into. So once they enter their email address in to your opt in form and press enter, they’re sent an email asking them to confirm they really want to receive your information or free gift. If they click a confirmation link they’ll get what they signed up for, if not then they won’t be added to your list and won’t receive anything.

This is good because you’ll know everyone on your list has access to their given email address, and no one has just entered fake details. People often give fake details to get your free offer without giving up their email address, so don’t let this happen to you.

What To Do Now:

Your email marketing software should already have a double opt in option, so make sure it’s selected.

Delete Non Responsive Subscribers Regularly

One of the most important things you can do when building a list is deleting non responsive subscribers. Now I know this isn’t a email marketing tip often suggested, but can be one that saves you a lot of money in the long run. Let me explain why…

No matter how good your news letter is or how good your free gift was, you’ll always get people on your list who simply won’t be responsive to your communications. And I don’t mean people who only read some of your emails or only click the odd link, I’m talking about people who simply don’t open your emails in the first place. You could have the best header in the world offering them 1k in cash, they still wouldn’t open that email. So question, why keep them on your list?

The thing is, having these people on your list is actually COSTING you money! Most email marketing software services charge you a monthly fee based on how many subscribers your have. The more you have, the more you pay. If a lot of these subscribers are dead weight that don’t benefit your business in anyway, getting rid of them could mean that you move down to a lower subscriber number and have to pay a smaller monthly fee. These savings could really add up, so cutting down your list could really help your list building efforts.

I’d advise you to clean out your subscribers list at least once a month. Your email marketing software provider should give you statistics of your list and how responsive each person is, so find those people that are given a bottom rating and delete them. You may have a smaller list, but they be making you more money as you’ll be saving on your monthly running cost.

What To Do Now:

Have a look at your mailing list. Are there any people who have been on there for a good while that regularly don’t do anything? If so, delete them.

Put A Opt In Box On Facebook And More

I bet you’ve never seen this one in any other ‘how to build a list‘ guides. It’s actually possible for you to collect subscribers from Facebook and any other place that allows you to input HTML code. So what’s the benefit of this? Well, the more places you have your opt in form, the more chance you’ll have of building a list fast. People may see your Facebook page but not your website, so this may be the only way you can get certain people on your list.

With Facebook, they allow you to put your subscriber box in your ‘fan page’. If you create a new tab on your fan page which uses Facebook MarkUp Language (FBML), you can enter HTML code as you would in any other site. If you’re not familiar with HTML don’t worry, all you need to know is you need to copy your sign up form code and put it in to your page as you would normally do with your website.

The same can be done with MySpace, as well as any other places which allow you to enter HTML code. The more you put your form in front of people’s eyes, the more subscribers you will potentially get.

What To Do Now:

If you have a Facebook fan page, add a new FBML tab and add your opt in form code to it. Also add your opt in form code into any other place you use which allows you to add HTML code.

Use A Squeeze Page To Build A List Fast

Setting up a squeeze page is essential when list building. Before I tell you why however, I will tell you what a squeeze page is.

A squeeze page is a page which does nothing else but give people the option to subscribe to your mailing list. On these page you’ll have your opt in box, as well as maybe a picture of your ebook or other incentive. You’ll also have some short text with a powerful call of action to get them to sign up.

* An Example Squeeze Page

So why are squeeze pages so important? Well, having a squeeze page means you have a place you can send potential subscribers if they’re not originally from your website. This page is designed only to collect their email address, and not distract them with other ‘shiny things’. Say for example you’re promoting on Twitter and want people to sign up to your mailing list. You could always send them to your main website’s address, but because there’s probably a lot going on in your main page (Or even in any of your articles) they might do something else on your site and not sign up to your list. Creating a squeeze page and sending people there solves this problem.

The good think about squeeze pages is they can be shared around by other people too, and are essential if you ever want to do a list swap with people (More info on this later under the heading ‘Do A Joint Venture List Share’).

What To Do Now:

Build a squeeze page on your website. Keep it short and straight to the point, and once you’ve got the email address direct them back to your main website or relevant ‘thank you’ page.  Aweber allows you to create squeeze pages easily in their main package.

Build Your List More With Social Networks

Social networking can be a valuable tool for building your list. Think about it, people go on these websites to talk and trade information. If you have interesting information for these people, why not go straight to the source and tell them? They will of course need to subscribe to your list to get all the good info, so it’s actually beneficial to both parties.

One of the sites I’ve had the most success with converting the users into my subscribers is Twitter. I use Tweet Adder to fully automate the whole process, and essentially get a bunch of new subscribers whenever I feel like it.

My favourite tactic is this: Find some big profiles in your niche that already have a lot of subscribers. Use Tweet Adder to automatically follow say 500 of that person’s followers. When you do this, make sure your latest Tweet talks about getting your incentive for free and includes a link to your squeeze page. Doing this you will get a percentage of the people following each step and signing up to your list. Every few days rinse and repeat.

* Tweet Adder – Used To Build My List Fast

There are other social networks that can be used to spread the word about joining your mailing list, but I stick to just using Facebook and Twitter. You however can use as many as you want.

What To Do Now:

Decide which social networks you’re going to use to help build your list. A word of warning though, don’t use too many as it will take up all your time. Using Twitter and Facebook in moderation is a good idea, Twitter being fully automated with Tweet Adder and Facebook being run like an extension of your own website.

Do A Joint Venture List Share (Ad Swaps)

OK, so far we’ve been looking at ways to build your list manually and at a decent speed. But what if I told you there was a way of making your list numbers grow significantly over night? Well there is, and I’m going to show you how!

Ad swaps is a way a lot of the top marketers grow their lists significantly in a short space of time. This type of list building will become open to you once you have reached a certain amount of subscribers of your own, as you’ll need a decent amount to be able to do the ad swap. These joint venture ad swaps go something like this:

Two people with similar size lists in the same general niche agree to message their own list subscribers with the other person’s offer. The idea is that you will get a bunch of people from their list signing up to your list, and they will get a bunch of people from your list going to them.

When doing a list share it’s important to offer something of real value to these people so you can get as many of this person’s list as possible going over to you. If you offer them something rubbish you will have wasted your time as not many people will subscribe.

You need around at least 500 subscribers before you can do any list swaps, but once you have that many it’ll be a lot easier to get a lot more quickly.

Sound good to you? Want to build your mailing list at great rates using ad swaps but don’t know who to swap ads with? No problem, below are a few places you can find people also looking for list and advert swaps:

• IMAdSwaps.com
• Safe-Swaps.com
• ListSwapper.com

So if you’ve ever wondered how to build a list fast, this is the way to do it.

List Building No Nos

Some people wonder how to build a list fast then come to the conclusion that the best way is by buying subscribers. This however couldn’t be further from the truth. The thing is, paid for subscribers haven’t opted in to receive emails from you, so if you tried to email them there’s a good chance they’ll mark your emails as spam.

When you buy email addresses you’re getting a very low quality of subscriber. This subscriber doesn’t respond to much, and doesn’t really interact with your emails. People hate these unsolicited emails, which is why you always see opt in forms saying “We will never give your details to any third parties, we hate spam as much as you do”.

Another thing you don’t want to do is use a single opt in form. Doing this you’ll have no way of knowing if the person’s entered their real email address or not, and you could end up with a lot of fake subscribers.

The final thing you don’t want to do when building a list is making large numbers of your subscribers unsubscribe. If this is happening, you may want to think about what you’re offering people and why they aren’t enjoying it. Then you can adapt accordingly.

How To Build A List – Conclusion

Building a list is no quick task, but as long as you’ve got a good incentive and you get your mailing list out there are much as possible your list building shouldn’t be too hard. So now you know how to build a list, let’s see you get in on the action!

Today we’re going to look at some email marketing tips that’ll get your email marketing campaigns growing faster then you could’ve imagined. All of these tips work with Aweber and other respected email marketing programs, so can be easily implemented to greatly boost your email marketing efforts. Sound good? Then let’s get started…

Email Marketing Tips – List Building

Building your list is extremely important, as without a subscriber list you’ll have no one to market to. Here are some things you can do to get a lot more people on your mailing list:

Let Subscribers Come To You
When building your list, never be tempted to add random email addresses to build up your list numbers. When you start adding and messaging people who didn’t subscribe to your list, that’s when you start getting marked as spam and your list score goes down. Don’t add people to your list without their permission, let them come to you and you will end up with a more responsive and interactive list.

Give Them An Incentive To Be On Your List
Which would you rather subscribe to: “Sign up to our mailing list”, or “Sign up to out mailing list and receive a free guide on *Insert subject related to your niche*. You will also receive weekly tips and tricks for dominating your market”.
Give people a reason to give you their email address (Freebies, useful information etc) and you will get a lot more subscribers as a result.

Have Your Opt In Box In A Prominent Position
There’s no point having a opt in form if no one can see it, you need to make sure the option to sign up to your mailing list is easily visible to all. Make sure your opt-in form is above the fold of your website (Can be viewed as soon as people enter your website), in the header or at the top of the right sidebar are both good positions.

Use Double Opt In
Make sure people have to double opt-in to sign up to your mailing list. There are two main reasons for this, one because then you can be sure that the email address you’re given is a real one (Some people try and give you a fake email address just to get the free gift, but often give a real one when they see that doesn’t work), and two so you can be sure that this person really wants to be on your list. Using a single opt in form you will end up with a lot of junk email addresses and a relatively unresponsive list.

Talk About Your List
One great way of getting subscribers is simply by talking about your list. For example, whenever I want a bunch of new subscribers, I know all I have to do is post a message about my free ebook on Twitter. In order to get my free ebook, the person needs to subscribe to my mailing list. Once that’s done they will be sent a copy of the book automatically.

So what I do is follow a bunch of new people on Twitter (Automatically using Tweet Adder), then sit back and watch the subscribers roll in. It really is as simple as that.

Remember, when I add people on Twitter they can see I added them and often come and visit my page. They then see my post saying “Struggling with *Insert their niche here*? Then get the free guide on ______ for an instant career boost”. If you targeted your Twitter followers correctly, you should see quite a few people taking you up on this offer (More on this Twitter strategy in another post coming soon).

The best thing about all of this is it’s all done for me automatically. Using Tweet Adder, all I do is enter the details of who I want to follow once (Which takes about five minuets), click ‘follow’ and it’s all done automatically in the background while I work on other things. Then after a couple of days I click ‘unfollow’ and anyone that hasn’t followed me back automatically gets deleted. This is simple yet effective, and gets me new mailing list subscribers every time.

It’s not just Twitter however, this can also work with blog posts and anywhere else you want to spread the word. If you talk about the benefits of joining your list and make it easy to do, you’ll gain more subscribers then you would by simply putting up a opt in form and hoping for the best.

Use A Pop Up (In Moderation)
Another great way of gaining more subscribers is by using a pop up form. While it won’t be suitable for all types of websites, pop up boxes (Aka light boxes) can dramatically increase your opt in rate by 100s of percent (The opt in rate for one of my sites instantly increased by over 300% when I added a light box).

Now I know a lot of people have found these annoying in the past, but the modern light boxes don’t have many of the same flaws as the old ones. For starters, you can determine how often these boxes show up and who sees them. I only have my pop up box appear once a week for people that haven’t subscribed to my mailing list. So if you’re a new visitor to one of my websites, you’ll see a pop up form offering you my free ebook and weekly tips. If you close it and keep browsing my website, you won’t see another pop up again until a week has passed. After a week, you’ll see it again. Hopefully by then you’ll know more about my site and choose to subscribe this time round. If not, just close it and you won’t see it again for another week.

I use Popup Domination (Link opens in a new window) for sites I want a pop up on. It’s easy to install on your website, and is easily customisable in every way. This is an important feature, as you want your pop up to match the theme of your website so people can see it’s something officially endorsed by you. This in itself will increase your subscribes, and make sure your pop up doesn’t just look like a spammy advert.

Email Marketing Tips – Increasing Interactivity

Now there’s no point in having a big list if your subscribers aren’t responsive to your emails. Here are some tips that will keep your subscribers interested and more responsive to your emails:

Don’t Email Them Too Frequently
One of the biggest turn offs for a subscriber is to hear from you too often. If it feels like you’re emailing them every day, people will eventually get bored or annoyed by you and click that ‘unsubscribe’ link. The key is to not give people too much. Give them enough to keep you in their mind, but not so much that they’d rather not hear from you any more. With most of my sites I send out emails once a week (Unless there’s something big going on). This seems to work very well, as I have a extremely low unsubscribe rate.

Make Sure Every Email Has Value
I mentioned in the point above I have a extremely low unsubscribe rate. This isn’t only because I don’t message my subscribes too often, but also because every email I do send offers a lot of value to my readers. You will never see me send a email that will only benefit me, all of my emails are filled with either tips, freebies, or interesting news. In other words, all things that my readers would want me to send to them. Do anything less and you’ll find you’ll lose a lot of subscribers very quickly, so make sure you offer value in ALL your emails.

Only Focus On One Point
This is very important: Each email you send should only have ONE main point. Sending subscribers an email which talks about a few different subjects will decrease interactivity, and often make no one point stick in the users head. If you make the point of the email clear and only focused on one thing, the reader will also be able to focus and be more likely to click on links that relate to the given subject. It also allows the user to get interested in that specific subject, without giving them other things to compete with their attention.

Personalise, But Not Too Much
I’m sure you’ve heard before about how personalising your email can increase your open rate and make your subscribers feel more special. And while this is true, over personalisation can often be a huge turn off for your subscribers. If you try and include their name all over the email and insert all their details everywhere, it’s going to appear unnatural and put the reader at unease.

So how much should you personalise each email? Well, inserting their name twice is often enough. Once in the subject field (E.G. “Hi ‘NAME’, I’ve Got A Free ______ With Your Name On It”), and once in the beginning of the email (E.G. “Hi ‘NAME’, how are you today?”). Doing this can increase the amount of people that open and go on to interact with your email as they feel it really is targeted at them. Anything more then this however is usually unnecessary and unnatural looking.

Always Give Them Something More To Do
Now this tip is a biggy, and one I’m surprised I’ve never really seen anyone else talk about before. It’s always a good idea to give your readers something else to do once they’ve finished reading your email, as if they’ve read to the bottom there’s a good chance they’re hooked on what you have to say. Now, you’d want to take advantage of this eager beaver don’t you? In the nicest way possible of course…

What I tend to do is write emails about subjects I have already covered on my websites, and at the bottom of the email link back to that page. I also say something like: “If you want to read more about ______, check this post on ______”. This results in a lot of my email subscribers clicking back on to my website and getting me more views (And often sales). Nice…

Include An Unsubscribe Option
Giving your subscribers a option to easily unsubscribe from your mailing should be mandatory for anyone running a mailing list. A lot of people initially think that they should make the unsubscribe link as hard to find as possible, but if anything this is doing you more harm then good. Why? Because if people can’t find a way to leave your mailing list, they’ll probably mark your emails as spam. And if enough of your subscribers do this, your emails will end up in people’s junk boxes, if they’re delivered at all.

As a mailing list owner, you should be aiming to offer your readers as much value as possible. If one of your subscribers feel they no longer want to receive your emails, that’s up to them. They won’t be opening your emails (Which lowers you list score) or buying anything from you, so it’s best to let them go.

Make sure you include your unsubscribe link clearly at the bottom of all emails you send out. If you get a lot of people unsubscribing from your list, you may want to think about how much value you offer in your emails.

Email Marketing Tips – Usability

Making your emails easy to interact with is essential, as bad formatting and design will mean people will be less likely to read what you have to say. Here are some tips on making sure your emails are user friendly:

Test Your Email Displays Properly
It’s always a good idea to test any new email designs to ensure they look the way you want them to. The best way to do this is by sending your email to your own email accounts. Ideally you should have a account on each of the major email providers such as Hotmail and Google Mail etc. You can then see how your email displays on each of these platforms, and make any changes if necessary.

There will always be small differences in how your email displays in different email accounts, but as long as nothing looks majorly out of place then it should be fine.

Make Sure All Your Links Work
Another thing you should look at when sending a test email to yourself, is that all the links work properly. You can do this simply by clicking on your own links and see where it takes you. Most of the time the links will be properly intact, but if you’re anything like me there’ll be the odd time where you put in the wrong link some how. Clicking on and testing your links will mean you can identify and rectify any problems before the email is sent out to your subscribers. Sending your readers broken links is the last thing you want to do. Not only will it frustrate them as they can’t carry on reading what they were planning, but it could also mean you’ll lose out on sales too.

Proof Read Your Emails
The final thing you should do when looking over your test email is that there are no mistakes. This should often be done by reading through the whole thing a couple of times and making sure you’ve put the correct information. You should also spell check your work, and check that the grammar is clear and easy to understand.

Ensure Your Emails Are Easy To Navigate
Some people like to over complex the design of their emails. They make them look like websites, with side bars and all different options for the reader to click. What I’ve found however, is it’s often best to make your emails as simple as possible to navigate.

Giving your reader all these options will mean they’ll have to look longer and harder for something that interests them. The end result is often that they get bored at looking at all the options and go off and do something else. If your email reads like a word document however, it’s nice and simple for them to open and read. They simply start at the top of the email, and read down. This is the type of email I’ve had most success with, as it’s easier to get your reader to focus on the message you’re trying to get across.

Email Marketing Tips – Building Relationships

Building a relationship with your mailing list is essential, and what email marketing is all about. If your subscribers feel a connection with you, they’re more likely to trust your recommendations and products. Here are some tips on how you can build relationships with your customers:

Use Autoresponders To Build Relationships On Autopilot
Autoresponders are a great way of building a relationship with customers hands free. The great thing about autoresponders is you only have to write all of your messages once. Once they’re written though, they can be used to help build relationships with new customers for time to come.

As long as you make sure your emails aren’t time sensitive, using automated messages is one of the best methods of email marketing you can do. Just don’t forget to personalise your messages…

Make Subscribers Feel They’re Part Of Something
This is a skill, but you should try and make your subscribers feel like they’re really appreciated and belong in your social circle. You can do this by talking about your list and website users being a community, and often ask them for their opinions on things. If they feel like they have a real say in your site or company, they’ll more likely buy in to what you have to offer.

Conclusion

Using these email marketing tips you can create a more natural and enjoyable newsletter for your readers. If your readers enjoy what you have to say, they will stay subscribed longer and often buy more of what you’re selling.

The key is to offer them value while not over doing the amount of emails you send them. I hope these email marketing tips were helpful, best of luck with building your ultimate mailing list!

When it comes to building a mailing list, many people seem to think having a big list is something to show off about. While in theory you can make more money with a larger list, if your list is mostly unresponsive then it won’t be of any more use then a smaller list. In fact, it can actually be more of a hindrance. Here’s why…

Save Money By Deleting Subscribers

As I’m sure you know, when you use email marketing programs you pay based on the number of subscribers you have. The more people on your list, the more you have to pay. This isn’t a problem if all of these people are interacting with you and benefiting your business in some way, but if they aren’t opening and reading your emails they are actually costing you money.

As an example, let’s say about 20% of your subscribers had fallen into the ‘non responsive’ category. They didn’t open any of your emails, no matter what your header was or how often you emailed them. So what’s the point of keeping them on your list? Other then to say you’ve got more subscribers (Which won’t help your business) there is none. These subscribers should therefore then be deleted.

Let’s say for example we were using Aweber and have 5,500 subscribers. We’re paying their standard $19 to have an account plus $50 a month as we have between 5,001-10,000 subscribers. That’s $69 a month we’re paying. Now let’s say we got rid of 20% of our subscribers as they weren’t benefiting our business in any way. 20% of 5,500 is 1,100, so taking away 1,100 subscribers from 5,500 subscribers is 4,400 subscribers we’d now have on our list. Because we have less then 5,001 subscribers, we now move down to a lower price plan which is $30 a month on top of the $19. So the deleting of those subscribers has just saved us $20 a month, which is nearly a third saving on what we were paying before.

The Dangers Of Keeping Unresponsive Subscribers

While it’s a good idea to delete unresponsive subscribers for money saving reasons, there’s also another reason why you should get rid of them. Constantly emailing people who don’t want to receive your communications any more can lead to them marking your messages as spam. This can be frustrating as they could have simply clicked ‘unsubscribe’ in any of your emails, but in reality a lot of people aren’t bothered to go that far. That involves opening up your email and finding the required link, that’s if they know an unsubscribe link exists in your emails. Most people find it easier to just mark a whole load of emails as spam, so often that’s what they do.

As you will probably know, getting marked as spam too often isn’t a good thing. It could lead to your messages ending up in a lot more people’s junk folder, as well as your email marketing provider banning you from using their service. Neither of course is a desired outcome.

How Often Should You Delete Non Responsive Subscribers?

As there is no set amount of time you should wait to delete any non-responsive subscribers, you should base it on your own campaign. Someone that messages people more then once a week may want to have a clear out of their subscribers maybe once a month, while someone that only messages subscribers once a month may want to have a clear out every half a year or so. I’d advise you try and retain these subscribers first by asking them questions in the email header or by giving them special offers. If this doesn’t work though then it’s time to get rid of them.

In conclusion, having unresponsive subscribers on your mailing list can cost you money and potentially get you marked as spam. Do what you can to try and retain these subscribers, but if they still don’t respond to your emails then delete them.

This is a question I’ve been asked many a time before. The question of when you should start building your mailing list is one that’s widely questioned amongst business owners, but in reality has a very simple answer: You should start building your mailing list right from the beginning! The reason for that is this…

If you have a nice new website and you don’t have a opt-in in form to catch visitors email addresses, you’re potentially losing out on a lot of money. The whole reason why you get people on your mailing list is so you can contact them whenever you want, if you get people on your website but don’t take down their contact details you’re probably not going to hear from that person again. Now imagine one of those people was a big spender, you’re just missed out on some very big sales…

Think about it like this, you have a business meeting with a lot of people worth keeping in contact with. However, you don’t bring your mobile phone so you can’t take any of their details down. Further more, you know you won’t get the chance to contact these people again as they all live abroad. Don’t you wish you brought your phone with you now? Not having a opt in form on your website is like not carrying your mobile phone around with you, it simple doesn’t make sense!

One of the things you should do when building a site is always implement an opt-in form even before it goes live. That way you can start collecting people’s details on your mailing list right from the beginning. Even if you only get 20 subscribers in the first month, that’s 20 more potential customers, and potentially a lot more money (You might even get a big spender or two in there).

Don’t wait until months into your business before you start building your mailing list, start collecting subscribers today and increase your business potential immediately!