Internet marketing guru after Internet marketing guru will tell you the LIST is your most important asset. Especially seasoned marketers that have been around for 10 years or more. Again and again I have asked affiliate marketers, social media marketers, SEO experts, Ecommerce millionaires, content marketers and bloggers: What’s the secret to your success and what should I be doing now to make a million online? Doesn’t matter what industry they’re from they almost always say that success is found in your email newsletter list.
You may be wondering why or how is an email newsletter so important? I thought the pundits said email is dead. Well an average return on a subscriber per month is said to be about $1. Which doesn’t sound like much but a lot of seasoned email marketers have newsletter lists of 100,000 and more. And that $1 per subscriber per month is considered very low by those selling their own big ticket items to their loyal followers. I’ve heard some guru marketers talk of $20 and more per subscriber per month! Do the math on that and you’ll understand why the big boys LOVE their email lists so much.
In no particular order, here’s 5 reasons why you should start your email newsletter today, even if you’ve only just started your blog. One of the biggest regrets I hear from bloggers is I wish I started my newsletter list earlier or I wish I paid it more attention sooner. Don’t be one of those bloggers, start a newsletter Today!
Your Subscribers are Your Subscribers!
You might spend $10,000 on hiring the best and brightest Search Engine Optimization guru to work on your website to improve your search engine rankings but how secure is that traffic? Google only has to get a slight sniff of your SEO trickery to banish you from their hallowed search results. Overnight you can go from ranking first for your prized “monkey balls” search term and selling tons of monkey balls, to being sent to page 10 for “monkey balls” and becoming essentially invisible. Game over, no more monkey balls for you good sir.
Similar story with social media but you know for sure that fans of your Facebook page profile are not going to see your posts. You might have 10,000 likes to your Facebook page but if you want those people to see what you’re posting then Mr Zuckerberg thinks you should pay him for that privilege.
With newsletter subscribers you have much more control over what they see from you. Sure there are issues with being sent to the junk folder but with some gentle encouragement you can often get people to add you to their safe email list.
So if the Google God does strike you with lightening for worshiping false SEO idols then you’ll still have your 10,000 email subscribers waiting for your enlightened messages. If social media algorithms change and they decide you’re no longer worthy then you’ll still have your loyal subscribers to console you.
Return on Investment is Amazing
The ROI with email newsletters is so much higher than any other form of marketing when it’s done right. It’s why the big boys offer so many freebies and bribes to join their list. Many will even supercharge the growth of their newsletter by paying for traffic and sending it through a sign up funnel.
Social media is more of a conversation with customers but newsletters are like a friend sharing a good product or service with another friend. Trust is built up over time and your suggestions mean something.
Campaign Monitor says that you can expect a $44 return on investment. So for every dollar you spend on email marketing you can expect a return of $44! Obviously rates will be much higher or lower for people but even if you were really bad at it you could be making $10 back for every $1 spent. Those returns are hard to ignore.
You can Build a Relationship with your Readers and Develop Trust
Email newsletters are seen as an intimate medium as apposed to something like social media where you post something for the world to see and all responses are also seen by the world. Emails are delivered to individuals and if those individuals wish to comment on something you said in your newsletter they’ll reply to you, one on one. It’s more of a private conversation rather than a public one.
With this intimacy and the familiarity that comes with you regularly sending out your email newsletter comes trust, and with trust comes sales. Use this trust responsibly and only promote products or services that you truly believe in or you can lose that trust forever.
You can Drive Traffic to Your New Products or Services
If you’re launching a fancy new product, talking at a seminar, or you’ve just released a new book it’s going to cost a whole lot more to let people know about it if you don’t have an email newsletter list. Many subscribers would probably never find their way back to your blog if you didn’t constantly remind them that you still exist through your newsletter. Everything you produce, do, or release in the future will have an instant receptive audience in your list.
It’s so Easy and Affordable to Start Your Email Newsletter Today!
Places like AWeber have prices starting from $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers and $149 per month for up to 25,000 subscribers. They have a whole bunch of free email templates, a ton of educational information, and they have an excellent support team ready to answer your questions if you get stuck. They’ve made the whole process very easy and intuitive.
So the question isn’t can you afford to create en email newsletter list it’s can you afford NOT to start an email newsletter list? And the answer is, don’t put it off another day, go sign up now and get started today. Make it easy for people to find your sign up form and begin to regularly send out newsletters. Some swear by weekly, some only do it monthly, and other will send one out everyday! Just start building your email list and see why the big boys swear by them.
There’s a few quality newsletter list providers out there but I recommend AWeber. I use and love them for my email newsletter.
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