Email Marketing 101
Email Marketing is a great tool, but the money is NOT in the list, it is in people’s wallets, and will stay there unless you can persuade them to buy.
So let’s start with the basics, so you can check to see if you are converting visitors into ‘customers’, or if there is some tension or friction in the ‘sales process’.
Am I a marketer?
First of all, you need to be clear about the goals of your site. Is it to persuade, inform, entertain?
The reason I ask is, let’s face it, there is a certain amount of work involved all the time, and cost too, in doing a website, even if it is just something you have put up for family and friends.
You may love to blog, but unless you are being hosted at a free site, there is cost involved. So why not turn your hobby site into a money-maker?
You may not get a huge flood of cash pouring in, but if it is enough to cover the cost of domain registration and hosting every year, great.
You can monetize your blog or site it very easily by putting ads on your site, by becoming an affiliate with a company like Commission Junction, and then putting up the banners and special offers. Money will come to you every single time you make a sale.
Some pay on the basis of commission, that is, you get a percentage of whatever the customer spends, thanks to links which track the sales back to you.
Others pay on the basis of lead generation. That is, they sign up for something, like a free newsletter, and you get paid.
So, if you have an email list you have permission to contact on a regular basis, you can send them news and regular updates about your site, and also provide links to the special offers from the companies you are working for as an affiliate.
In which case, yes, you ARE a marketer.
Commission Junction is one of the best known affiliate services, with a wide variety of companies to work with. Once you sign up with them for your site or sites, you will get a code and then you can begin to search all of the offers. You will be able to get links with your code embedded, so that you will be given credit for any sales which take place at your site.
Start small, with relevant ads related to your site’s topic/s, and watch the money come in (we will be talking about how to do this in a new series of articles soon).
Another group is called Performics. They were working with Yahoo Search Marketing and were recently bought by Google, so they are also worth keeping an eye on.
