How to sell by email

Hi everyone,

Now I have managed to build a nice list of about 1000 subscribers and I would like to start selling some products to them using my autoresponder service (and broadcast emails).

There is a variety of actions I would like them to do:
- visit a website
- read a page
- subscribe to a free newsletter, game or service
- buy a product (not mine)

I would like your help and experiences on the best practices here. How should I do that? what should I avoid doing? What CTRs should I expect? What style should I use? how often can I send such emails?...

Please share any ressource you find interesting (ebook, articles, forum threads, your input...)
Thx in advance

 

Hi

CTR can really vary. Depending on how well your list knows you and trusts you. I have had experience with 300,000 mailling list at 70% click through. This was a day of a big promotion though.

You can improve the CTR/Open Rate using many techniques. For example put the clients name in the subject - "Good News Tony - Get 7 Free Money Saving Tips". This will improve the open rate. For CTR make the points of action in the email stick out. If youre using links make sure they are a different colour to the rest of the text (the original royal blue is best). If using graphics to click through make sure they are a different colour to the rest of the design. Generally green works best.

Offer something enticing in the email. Try to make the subscriber think the offer is exclusive to them. eg "Exclusive offer for Example.com Members". Offer a coupon code "Free Coupon Code to mailing list members". Try to make them feel special.

How often??? I have sent emails to lists 6 times per week or weekly. Again it all depends. Start slow (maybe monthly) and gradually build up until you start getting a bit of backlash hehe. By then no doubt you might have 1000000 subscribers

Good luck and hope this helps

 

This certainly helps, great input man!

 

Guess you brought out an important point, the email title must be catchy enough.

As for the email content, it is really debatable.

Some would argue that a short straight to the point email that arouses curiosity is enough to draw your attention to go to the embedded link. I tend to agree.

Too long an email will instantly turn people off unless your subscribers have been with you for a long time and know that your content is always packed with useful info that they want to read.

If it is a sales pitch, make it one. Short and sweet and arouse interest.

Structure your email content such that you have a max 2 or 3 sentences in order not to make your content look too clouded and boring. Readers hate that!

 

and do you have linguistic techniques (words, adjectives, structures...)

 

Any additional experiences

 

I would recomend to train your list to buy and or vist site you recomend by send them a email every day or every 2 days then youll weed out all the emails that dont want to do anything threw your op out link and then whats left over is a golden refined money making list

 

Yep smart approach buddy.
Do you know of any feature in getresponse (my autoresponder service) that can help me do that in an automated way?
Green reps for everyone here