The money is in the list. This is probably not the first time you have heard this. What are they talking about?
What is an E-mail list?
They are referring to your E-mail list. Your database of users that opted into your list because they are your raving fans, opted into a free offer, to get updates on your company, for free promos or coupons, etc.
For example, someone might end up on your blog about food and in the margin they see a banner that says click here for a free PDF cookbook e-mailed to you. They click, enter their name and e-mail into the pop up box and the cookbook is delivered to their inbox.
Do’s and Don’ts
There are many do's and especially don'ts for sending e-mail newsletters/blasts to your list.
First, make sure you follow the law. This is not legal advice, but you need to make sure you are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
There are programs that can help you do e-mail the right way with an opt-in, double opt-in and an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every e-mail. Some of these Email Service Providers (ESP) include Aweber or Get Response.
These ESPs will even have sign up forms you can embed into your website to add people into your email list.
If you want a more professional opt in page, you can use Click Funnels or Leadpages.
Now it's time to send out e-mails to your list...
What to Write
At the bottom of every E-mail you send has 2 links, one is the Unsubscribe Link (automatically takes them off your list instantly forever) and Report Spam (they are reporting your E-mail as spam). Both are bad, the “Report Spam” link is worse. If you get too many “Report Spam” reports, your ESP may drop you/ban you.
How do you avoid this? Make sure all the e-mails are relevant to the audience. Segment your audience so you can tailor your e-mails to exactly what they are looking for and what they are interested in.
For example, if they opted in for an e-book about 10 ways to lose weight, don't be sending them emails about making money online. That is a sure fire way to get unsubscribes and likely SPAM reports.
If you are going to collect different leads like nutrition or making money online, keep them on different opt in pages that add the leads to two different lists so that you can tailor your email blasts according to the list.
In your email, you can include offering value with relevant articles, news, updates, or promotions. Aweber allows you to send an email automatically from your latest blog post using an RSS feed. You can include a call to action like click through for a special promotion or to see the latest blog post. You can send out occasional commercial emails, but don't send constant advertisements with every email or it will likely result in unsubscribes.
You can have subscribers that add items to carts and abandon the cart an email encouraging them to follow through with check out. You can email subscribers on anniversaries like one year following the date that they first subscribed.
Avoid wording and formatting that will increase your chances that your Email will end up in a subscriber spam box or promotion box. For example, using the word free in the subject line can increase the chances of the email ending up in the spam box.
When you send relevant emails to the right audience, this will result in more click through's, higher conversions, less unsubscribes and fewer complaints.
More Useful Tools
E-mail verification services like Xverify.com can improve email deliverability by eliminating hard bounces, reducing spam complaints and minimizing fraud. They will check e-mail lists and opt-ins to see if they match with actual e-mails that exist on the host they refer to. This way you are not sending your newsletter to an email that doesn't exist and bounces back.
Tracking services like voluum.com can help you track the actions of subscribers that click through.
Various tools like isnotspam.com can check to see how likely your email newsletter will end up in people's spam box before you send it out so you can make any necessary corrections before hand.
