Uncover the Secrets to Writing Successful
E-mail Promotions that will Drive Swarms of Customers
to Your Affiliate Products!
What You'll Find in this Article:
Using e-mail marketing to promote your affiliate
products is one of the most effective methods
available -- and one we highly recommend!
In fact, we're such big believers in
promoting affiliate products through e-mail that we've
written and tested e-mail campaigns that you can copy
and paste and send to your own customers -- and we've
even included winning subject lines!
Of course, you don't have
to use the e-mail promotions we've written. After all,
the most convincing e-mail messages will always come
directly from you. Nobody knows better than you how to
approach your customers, and your audience is already
familiar with your 'voice.'
The good news is, you don't have to
be born with writing skills to create e-mail that
really sells -- it's a skill that anyone can
master. Follow the simple tips and tricks we've laid
out here, and in just a few minutes, you'll be on your
way to success!
Why use e-mail to promote
affiliate products?
A personal e-mail written to your
opt-in list can be a very profitable tool for
promoting. Because nobody knows your readers better
than you do, you can personally recommend a product in
an e-mail you send them, and emphasize the benefits
that you already know will be of specific
interest to them.
As well, because you've already
established your credibility with your subscribers,
they'll be more open to your recommendations. They
already look forward to hearing from you, because they
know you send them useful information that they can
trust.
When writing your e-mail, keep these
seven simple steps in mind. We guarantee they'll help
you generate letters with the highest possible sales!
How to write effective
content for e-mail promotions
The key to successful e-mail content
is to imagine that you are writing the letter to one
friend, rather than a large group of customers who are
all strangers to you. Writing with a single person in
mind will help you avoid writing that's too stiff and
formal, and make sure your claims are not overstated.
Follow these seven simple steps to
e-mail success:
-
Keep it personal: Write your letter
as though you were sending it to a close personal
friend. This is one of the best ways to guarantee
that you avoid any exaggeration or hype that will
scare away interested potential customers.
-
Tell them "Why": If you believe
that you’re recommending a good product that your
readers will benefit from, tell them. Be
specific about why you think it’s such a great
product and how they stand to benefit from checking
it out!
-
Be honest: If you’ve had personal
experience with the product, then let your customers
and subscribers know how you’ve personally benefited
from it. Results speak for themselves.
-
Be knowledgeable: If you don’t
have personal experience using the product,
familiarize yourself with it by taking a few minutes
to read the product information. Think about how it
will benefit your customers and subscribers, and
express this in your letter.
-
Keep it short: An effective e-mail
shouldn’t be any more than a page and a half.
Remember that your job is to get the reader to click
through your affiliate link to the product
information. Once the visitor is at our web site,
we'll look after presenting the more detailed
product information and closing the sale.
-
Keep it simple: Don't fall into the
trap of trying to fill your letter with big words
and complicated sentences to make it sound more
'official'. That kind of language is a surefire way
to turn people off. Think about what you want to say
in your letter, then imagine that you're sitting
down with a friend and telling them these things in
a casual conversation. That's the tone you want to
capture.
-
Test it! Before you e-mail the
letter to your entire opt-in e-mail list, consider
e-mailing it to a test group to gauge the response.
If the results aren't what you hoped, you can always
go back and 'tweak' it before you send it out to
everyone.
Important!
If you want to create a
custom e-mail, you don't need to start from scratch.
Why not use the copy we've already created, and make
changes to suit your audience? We've even written the
subject lines for you, and it's all been carefully
tested -- so you know it's going to work!
How to write subject lines
that get your e-mails opened
Of course, the best e-mail content
in the world is useless if you can't get people to
open the e-mail in the first place! That's where good
subject lines come in.
Think about all of those e-mails
you're probably getting on a daily basis with subjects
like:
-
MAKE $75,000 EVERY WEEK GUARANTEED!
-
EXPLOSIVE STOCK PICK AT $0.45!!!!
-
newsletter
-
THIS IS NOT SPAM!
Do you open these e-mails? Probably
not. The subject line makes it obvious that the e-mail
is spam... that it's from someone you don't know... or
it doesn't offer a clear benefit that makes you want
to read it.
Now, how many of your legitimate
newsletters and e-mails are mistakenly deleted by your
subscribers who read your subject lines and assume it
must be spam? How many potential sales could you have
saved simply by rewriting your subject lines?
Here are three ideas that will help
you write stronger subject lines that get your e-mails
opened:
-
Give news: When you write your
subject line, you can make an announcement or give
news that your readers will want to hear.
For example: My
review of
ChineseFoodDIY's new cookbook
-
Increase curiosity: Another good
approach to subject lines is to make your reader
curious about what's in the e-mail.
For example: Here's my secret weight loss
weapon
-
Emphasize benefits: You can also
write subject lines that emphasize how the reader
will benefit from opening your e-mail.
For example: Learn how to improve your
health
Remember, too, that you'll always be
most successful if you write subject lines that state
a clear benefit and tell the reader exactly
how they're going to save money, save time, make their
life easier, etc., by opening and reading your e-mail.
If you can state a benefit AND create curiosity, so
much the better!
The key when writing subject lines
is to emphasize benefits by considering your product
or service from your customers' point of view:
-
How will they benefit from taking the time to read
your e-mail?
-
What will they learn?
-
Is your product or service going to save them time?
-
Is it going to save them money? Is it going to
improve their lives in some way?
Write subject lines that emphasize
these benefits and you'll dramatically increase the
number of subscribers who open and read your e-mail.
Two other key points to remember
when writing your subject lines are:
How to format your e-mail
promotions
Okay, so once you've written a solid e-mail and
created a winning subject line, it's ready to go,
right?
Well, almost. You still need to check the formatting,
to make sure it's free of embarrassing errors that
will make you look sloppy and unprofessional --
destroying your credibility and ensuring that your
letter ends up in your subscribers' trash bins.
Remember that different e-mail programs, like Outlook,
Hotmail, and so on will display your e-mail
differently. Plus, different people will have their
personal program set to read their incoming mail in
different fonts, different sizes, different widths,
etc.
To ensure that your messages look consistent for as
many of your readers as possible, follow these simple
formatting tips:
-
Use a good text editor: As useful
as Microsoft Word may be, it is NOT the tool to use
when formatting e-mail copy. Word has too many
formatting quirks -- "macros" that are embedded into
the program that most of as are unable to work
around. These can (and often do) result in bad line
breaks, weird characters, and formatting errors on
the recipient's end. You are far better off using a
text editor.
Notepad and Wordpad, which come with Windows and can
be found under Programs >
Accessories in your Start
menu, will do the trick.
-
Watch your line lengths: Make sure
you set your line length to 65 characters in order
to prevent embarrassing line breaks. If your lines
are too long, your e-mail could turn out looking
like this:
> You might be wondering how anyone could
>let this
> happen. After all, wouldn't they notice
>that their e-mail has been broken up into numerous
different
> lines,
>each a different length?
You've probably received e-mail that looks like this
before. It's not only hard to read, it's annoying!
-
Use hard carriage returns: Some
older e-mail clients don't actually have "word
wrap," so to avoid having your e-mail appear as one
long line of text that readers will need to use the
horizontal scroll bar to read, insert a hard return
(by pressing "Enter") at the end of each line (i.e.,
every 65 characters).
-
Use a fixed-width font: When
formatting your e-mail, do so in a fixed-width font
like Courier that uses an equal amount of space to
display each character.
For example:
-
This is Courier
-
This is Arial
As you can see, Courier consistently uses the same
amount of space to display each character, while
Arial varies in width.
This is important because the majority of e-mail
clients use fixed-width fonts as their default (the
exception being Eudora, which defaults to Arial).
While an e-mail formatted in a fixed-width font
looks good when displayed in a font like Arial, an
e-mail formatted in a font like Arial looks terrible
displayed in a fixed-width font.
By formatting your e-mail in a fixed-width font,
you'll ensure that it looks good no matter what font
your reader's e-mail client defaults to.
-
Check spelling and proofread everything:
Everyone makes mistakes now and then, but
there is absolutely no excuse for the blatant errors
you routinely see made in many e-mail promotions.
Remember that spelling mistakes and poor grammar
make you look unprofessional and damage your
credibility.
So before clicking "Send," take that extra minute to
proofread your work and have a couple of other
people read it. You may save yourself some
embarrassment... and prevent lost sales!
-
Keep paragraphs short: By keeping
your paragraphs three to four lines in length, you
ensure that your e-mail is easy to read. The more
white space you use, the better. Long, never-ending
sentences that run on for 8 lines get very difficult
to read, causing readers to become frustrated and
delete your e-mail.
-
Test, test, test: Before sending
your e-mail to your entire list, take an extra 15
minutes to test how it looks in a variety of e-mail
clients such as:
As well, check your promotions in a couple of
web-based e-mail clients such as:
By setting up these different "test accounts,"
you'll give yourself the opportunity you need to fix
any potential problems, and guarantee that all of
your subscribers receive the same professional
looking e-mail.
Tools for managing your e-mail campaigns
Depending on the size of your opt-in list, you may
want to consider upgrading your e-mail tools. E-mail
programs like Eudora and Outlook are great for sending
e-mail campaigns to a small group of people, but once
you start to grow your opt-in list (which you need to
do if you're going to be a really successful
affiliate), you need to consider more sophisticated
e-mail management software.
A good e-mail management tool should be able to manage
all of your contacts' information, send e-mails to
your entire list with the click of a button,
automatically handle your "subscribe" and
"unsubscribe" requests, automatically deliver your
electronic information products, minimize and manage
"bounce backs," and give you the ability to
automatically follow up with customers via
autoresponder any time you want.
One tool that can do all of that is
Mailloop. You'll be benefiting from the exact same
features that we use to make $280,000
online each year!
Final thoughts
A professionally written and formatted e-mail with a
catchy subject line makes you look like a credible
business owner who takes what you do very seriously.
It invites readers to examine your e-mail... check out
your offer... and seriously consider making a purchase
based on your recommendations.
|
