I'm going to launch a new diet web site next month, and one plan is to have a mailing list that I can push diet and other offers at, and will probably use AWeber for the list maintenance. However, what are some tips for running the email list - frequency, offer to other info ratio, etc. My current idea was one mail per week with some diet encouragement or testimonials, kitten photos and faxlore type stuff and one offer mixed up in the text; sometimes for diet stuff, others would be for alternative health, or just random potentially interesting to my target audience adverts. Any advice, warnings etc?
I can only give what I personally like and/or dislike in regards to being on a list. I don't like it when I get more than an email a week from a marketer and it is almost always from them trying to sell me something. Call me jaded but I like to think of emails like a way to build a "connection" with my readers and I feel like many internet marketers go way overboard with their pitches. Using how I feel about receiving these emails, I usually send 2-4 emails per month in the form of a newsletter with articles that actually help further my reader's knowledge and only occasionally try to sell them on anything. Doing this has increased the amount of emails that are actually opened (just b/c you send them something doesn't mean that it will get opened) and in the event that I do heavily promote something, I usually can bank on a 35-40% conversion rate. Why is the conversion rate so high? Well, in my opinion it is due to the fact that I deliver a quality newsletter and have built my reputation on only suggesting the best things possible for my readers. In short, they trust me. A lot of internet marketers treat emailings in the same way that spammers treat their mailings- If you send out a million emails, you are bound to get at least one sale out of it. The question is, is that the way you want to go?
I'd send the main advice at least once a week. Whatever you do, do it on a planned schedule. You can have an ad or two in that email, depending on how much good content you have, but I'd limit "solo" emails with just ads to maybe once a month.