If you’ve got a website for your business – and you want to put your website “to work” either creating more business for your business – or staying in touch with current customers – then you need an email newsletter.
Newsletters are nothing new. Forward thinking business owners have been using newsletters for generations to keep their business name in front of their best customers. Email enables you to do this without paying postage and printing fees. However, emailing your newsletter is not without cost.
In order to effectively deliver an email newsletter list, you’ll need to do more than simply CC a hundred or so email addresses using Outlook Express. You’ll need specialized service which allows you to implement what is known as a “double opt in” subscription to your email newsletter list.
A double opt in email newsletter is considered the “gold standard” and should be implemented by every email newsletter list owner. Double opt in means that in order for a web visitors to join your newsletter – they must first give their email address. Then, the subscriber will get a confirmation message in that email account. To complete the subscription – the subscriber must reply to the email. That reply completes the double opt in process.
Double opt in email newsletter lists are much more valuable than single opt in lists because the subscribers have demonstrated that they REALLY want to subscribe to the newsletter.
Once visitors have gone through the double opt in process, then it’s time to get down to business creating and emailing your newsletters to your subscribers.
Believe it or not – creating a content strategy for your email newsletter is usually a real “sticking point’ for many business owners. Many don’t know what to say other than “Buy – Buy – Buy from me!”
Of course you want your email newsletter subscribers to BUY from you – but if you want them to keep opening the newsletters you’re sending them via email – then you’d better be sure to make your newsletter a real RESOURCE for your list subscribers.
Some of your email newsletter subscribers will never buy from you – but they may pass a helpful article along to a friend who does end up buying from you. That’s the way email newsletters work – they do double – even triple duty in creating sales for your business.
Kathy over at Virtual Impax has a great ebook on this topic. “Quick and easy email marketing newsletters” shows you how to build a newsletter email list that you can literally “set and forget”. I encourage my clients to pick up a copy of this valuable resource so they can use me to implement this strategy setting up the email newsletter for them. Then – once the newsletter is on “auto-pilot” my clients can put me to work on other projects.
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