Internet Marketing Tips from Denise Wakeman

How to Build an Email List FAST

If you want to grow your email list fast, have a contest.  There's nothing like a contest and giving away lots of valuable prizes to inspire action. This goes for blog subscribers as well as ezine subscribers.

Darren Rowse at Problogger.net has done this numerous times very successfully. A quick glance at Darren's blog and you'll see frequent posts about how to win stuff. Generally you must take some sort of action: comment on the blog post, subscribe to email list, etc. Rowse has over 50,000 blog subscribers; I don't know the numbers on his email subscribers, but I bet it's not too shabby.

Currently there are two email subscribe contests going on that I'm personally aware of.

1. Big Jason at BigMarketingOnline blog is giving away over $40,000 in prizes if you subscribe to his list. And they are not crappy prizes. Some are worth thousands of dollars. Hey, I subscribed when my good friend and colleague Mari Smith let me know about the contest.

I'd be happy to win Ray Edwards' $4,000 website copy critique, or a $500 AMEX gift card, or a one hour private consult with Jack Humphrey. Or a Facebook profile makeover with Mari Smith!

2. Chris Garrett is having a birthday give-away, but you're only eligible if you subscribe to his email list. Chris is a fantastic writer and he's not telling what his subscribers may win, (my mistake, prizes are listed here, and they are GOOD!) and when you do subscribe to his list you automatically get his ebook about writing killer flagship content. That's worth it right there. Read his post to learn WHY he recommends having an email list in addition to RSS subscribers.

As with all ethical people doing business on the web, they provide a way for you to  unsubscribe from their lists if you feel the information is not serving you. But wait until the contest is over... :-)

Internet Marketing: Six Ways to Improve Your Double Opt-In Rates

You probably know that having a double opt-in* process for your newsletter/ezine list is a must in business-to-business email marketing. It can be a confusing process to implement, depending on your ezine subscriber management system, but the benefits are clear:

• less chance of being called a spammer by someone who doesn't remember filling in the form (or because someone else filled out the form with their email address);
• fewer bad email addresses in your list;
• some mailing list delivery services require it!

BUT--sometimes your would-be subscribers don't click that link they receive from you in the confirmation email. And so you lose 10, 20, even 50% of your "subscribers". Arghh! How can you improve your opt-in rates? Generally, the more compelling and relevant your "offer" is to folks, and the easier it is for them to complete the process, the better opt-in rate you will enjoy.

1. Have some really strong copy that describes your ezine and the benefits they will receive.
2. Provide an incentive for folks to subscribe. A free ebook, ecourse, etc.
3. Remind folks that they must confirm (click the link in the confirmation email) to receive the incentive. You can do this on the signup or thank you page.
4. Help them make sure they receive the confirmation email, by offering a page explaining how to add your ezine to their whitelist.
5. Show them how to confirm. A snapshot of the confirmation email, with the confirmation link circled, is one way to make it crystal-clear.
6. Make sure your confirmation email matches the description of your ezine. Use the same wording, etc. Nothing will reduce your confirmation rates like using the generic confirmation email text!

Implement these permission-based email marketing best practices, and watch your subscription confirmations soar!

*Double opt-in defined:

1. new subscriber fills out a form on your site
2. your list management software sends a confirmation email with a special coded link
3. new subscriber clicks the link
4. subscriber is added to your list

Single opt-in eliminates steps 2 and 3.

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Email Marketing by the Numbers

We just learned that Chris Baggott's new book, Email Marketing By The Numbers, is now available on Amazon.com. Why are we excited about this? Well, Patsi is one of the featured authors.  It's a "compendium of ideas" culled from many people.

I just ordered my copy and Patsi's copy is on the way. After we have a chance to review the content, we'll post more about our observations.

Chris Baggott is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ExactTarget and we interviewed him on Blogging and Beyond in February about whether or not email is dead. Can you guess his answer?!

Book Promotion: How NOT to do it

This morning Patsi received an email asking for help on a new book promotion.  I'm reprinting the email here in its entirety to show you what NOT to do when you are seeking partners to help with your product promotions.

Hi,

We are working on promoting a book to as many people as possible to make it become a bestseller at Amazon.com on January 9, 2007.  The key to the success of this plan is to get a large number of people to purchase the book on a single day.
So we  need to  the  ezines list of  your  website or  subscribers who can  promote the book for us.
Regards,

Mac

What's wrong with this picture?!!!

Ezine Success Tips

For all you frustrated ezine publishers and those of you who are contemplating starting an ezine, Patsi and I have just completed a special report on Ten New Rules For E-Newsletter Success. The report is free to download and at the moment the only place to get it is on the sales page for our All in One Ezine Publishing System.

In addition to the Ten New Rules, you learn the Four Simple Keys for Publishing a Newsletter That Gets Results plus 8 reasons why you should send out an ezine.

There's no obligation to buy the System.  And, you will learn a lot from the Special Report.