Email marketing - where to start?

[pstarling]

Hi Guys,

This is my first attempt at email marketing and hence I am looking for some advice.

I have a site (www.kiwisouvenirs.com - PR4) that has been up and running since February 2006. So far I have had enough orders to break even but want to move it to the next level. In order to achieve this I would like to try email marketing but am not sure what offers/sites are legitimate.

I don't have a mailing list and hence am looking for a reputable company that will enable me to put an advert together and email it out to a validated list of opt-in email addresses.

Like many newbies I got stung with companies promising thousands of links and directory links. I want to avoid this happening again so please could you share your experiences and tell us which companies are reputable and what scams I should watch out for.

[arvana]

The best option, of course, is to build your own list -- then people are opting in to what YOU are offering. I would recommend staying away from purchased lists completely; you can never know how well qualified they are, but you can assume that you will get a low response rate since nobody on them has signed up to hear from you.

If you can't wait until your own list gets big enough to market to, you could approach webmasters of related websites whose lists might be interested in your products. You can either advertise in their newsletter, offer them an article for it (with bio + link), or purchase a sponsored mailing from them -- it will still be coming from them, so their list will be relatively responsive, and there is an implied endorsement of you there as well. Some good places to start might be ezines or portals that collect signups on their home page.

When it comes to building your own list, I would highly recommend taking every possible opportunity to ask people to join. Give them a good incentive -- offering free information usually works well. Signup opportunities on your home page, order pages, email signatures, etc can help you build your list fast.

Good luck!

[twanzell]

I totally agree. Building your own email list is the
best way to go by far. You might also want to
go online to look up some good courses for
email etiquette. That way you will know the
ends and outs to doing quality email marketing.

Paul offers a good series on quality email etiquette
when you simply sign up for his newsletter.

You can go to his site RIGHT HERE and just
sign up only for his Cashflow Magic News Letter
at the bottom to start receiving the series.

It is the best series on email marketing
I have ever read in my life. I think you'll
agree.