The main purpose of email marketing is to reach your target audience as quickly and as directly as possible and to then to focus on maintaining and building your relationship with them.
The reason why email marketing has grown at such a phenomenal rate is based on the fact that people in the virtual community are always hungry for information. They subscribe to information that they are interested in. On the other hand, not all people are willing to subscribe to such information. They may have been interested in your products once but may no longer be interested.
Basically, opt-in list refers to the list of email addresses of people who have agreed to subscribe to your mailing list. In this way, you can freely send emails that entail promotions, brochures, new product announcements, and every aspect of your marketing campaign.
When you build an opt-in list, you not only increase the probability of being successful in email marketing but also boost your sales and profits as well. This is because building an opt-in list will give you the chance to stay in contact with your customers by getting their email address.
In this manner, you can continue to promote your products and services in which they are interested in because they have opted to subscribe to your mailing list. Hence, whatever it is that you feed them, chances are, they will most likely respond positively.
In building an opt-in list, there are two types to be considered. The first one is the single opt-in and the other one is the double opt-in or the confirmed opt- in. In building a single opt-in list, online businesses simply use a “sign-up tag” in their websites so that every time a person visits their website, he or she can opt to subscribe in the business’ email list. On the other hand, a confirmed opt-in list or double opt-in entails a confirmation message after the customer has subscribed to the particular website’s email list.
Usually, the confirmation takes place by replying on a system-generated message that asks for a confirmation of the subscription or by clicking on a link that entails the confirmation of the customer. They each have their own pros and cons when it comes to email marketing. But nevertheless, both are designed to give your online business the best solution possible in order to generate emails and permissions without being accused of spamming.
The verification process is a vital phase in your email marketing campaign. Mailing lists with more than 10% undeliverable email addresses are a red flag to internet service providers (ISPs). Sending to recipients who previously unsubscribed will lead to spam complaints and ISP blocks.
Louis Chatoff, deliverability manager for the StreamSend email marketing service, says during this early stage, it’s important that you ensure you have a professional presence online. You need a public WHOIS record for easy domain identification. You also need a well-defined privacy policy on all your website landing pages.
“Use different Internet protocol (IP) addresses for your transactional mail and your marketing mail,” advises Chatoff. “And contact the ISPs about having your IP addresses added to their feedback loops and whitelists. Information is available at the ISP’s postmaster site, or if you are using an email service provider (ESP), it should be able to assist you. Finally, you need to stay current on authentication technologies. Having your Domain Name System (DNS) record in order with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records, DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) will help ensure this ‘warm-up’ stage is complete.”
Strategies like that can explode your small business quickly, that’s why I’d suggest you go right now to http://www.freemarketingbook.org and request a copy of Jonathan Jay’s new book “Marketing Secrets of a Multi-Millionaire Entrepreneur”
Copyright SuccessTrack 2009
