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Part 7: Get Your Subscribers Begging For More

This is the seventh article in an eleven part series on how to Grow Your Business using Opt-In lists. Opt-in lists are THE critical success factor of increasing sales.

This is the seventh article in an eleven part series on how to Grow Your Business using Opt-In lists. Opt-in lists are THE critical success factor of increasing sales. “The money is in the list” is a popular Internet saying. Build your list properly and have a good email system and your business will continually grow.

From talking to many satisfied opt-in list subscribers and forums, I have learned of what is essential in opt-in marketing and what makes the subscribers begging for more instead of lining up to unsubscribe.

Keep your promotional materials light,

creative and

original.

Many people are stressed out. Getting a stuffy business proposal rather than a light hearted email may just agitate them more. A warm friendly smile or banter is always more welcome than a serious business meeting or proposal. While you do want your customers to take you and your products and services seriously, you also want to show them that you know how to have fun.

Have good content in the email, even if it means investing in an experienced and professional copy writer to write them for you. An effective copy writer should be able to

• build trust between you and your customers
• establish your credibility in what they write

Writing must be informative but not too stuffy.

Let go of the professional jargon and anything that might confuse a reader.

Good content should be able to outline the benefits of your product and services and why they need what you are offering. But do not look as if you’re overeager or needy. There is as definite line between being persuasive and full of it. It should be able to entertain as well as lead them to buying from you.

Your promotional materials should be clear. Don’t leave people guessing. You should lead them to you and not vice versa. Explain to them what they need to do in a manner that won’t be confusing. Try to anticipate also what your target client needs. Do your research and information gathering, many sites will be able to help you with that.

Provide clear and crisp images of what you are offering. If the people know what you have for them, they are more likely to beg for more. For example, if you are selling a car, provide them photos but only enough to encourage them to go to your site for more.

Besides having great content and decent writing another key to using e-mail successfully is personality and having a conversational style. Write like you talk - as if you were talking face-to-face. Forget about correct sentence structure. Nobody cares online – they’re more interested in the information than in perfect grammar. Don’t write r-mails that sound like a corporate memo—no one want to read those anyway.

Writing as you speak is a powerful technique that makes people feel like they know you personally, and that they can trust you. It’s the best and quickest way to get your message across. For example, which is easier to read?

“My e-mail endeavors were largely unsatisfactory until I acquired the requisite skills in articulating messages that the majority of readers could appreciate”

OR?

“My response rate sucked until I learned to write the way I speak.”

Of course not every writing rule you learned in school can get thrown out. A casual tone of voice is fine; bad grammar and spelling mistakes are not. Nobody wants to take the advice of someone who can’t write or spell. Use the spell checker religiously. Pay careful attention to words that sound alike but have different meanings, i.e. their/there, its/it’s, hear/here, etc.

Other tips for writing lively, interesting emails include:

• Short paragraphs. Break up big blocks of writing into smaller blocks. No more than 3 sentences belong in any paragraph.
• Vary sentence length. Make sentences shorter rather than longer. Use one or two word sentences. Like this.
• Eliminate useless words. Short is better than long. The best e-mails are shorter than 500 words, shorter than 300 is better. If you need to say more put it on your website or send out the option to get your e-newsletter.

Give Their Eyes A Break. Use whatever you need to give your reader’s eye a break. Liberally use bullets, the dash, ellipses (the three dots like this …), the dash, CAPITAL letters, and headings will make pages more inviting to the eye.

Use various formatting techniques - Bold, Italic, Underlined. However don’t use too many different fonts. Change your fonts for quotes or special text boxes, perhaps for making headings stand out. Too many fonts make the text unreadable and it looks unprofessional.

Perhaps most important, get personal with your readers. Let them know there’s a real person writing them. Just as I’ve shared some of my life with you here - become a real person to your readers. Life is in the details. Don’t be afraid to let people know who you are. That’s not to say you should release your home address and invite everyone out for coffee. But just as like you would exchange a bit of small talk in any business meeting, allow your readers to get to know you by sharing a little of your life with them.

Part 8 -Can You Really Use Articles To Build Your List?