Why Should I Open Your E-mail?

Posted in Opt In Email List Marketing

Here’s an interesting fact (no really): The “average” surfer receives 308 e-mails each week – according to research by Doubleclick (an independent online marketing company). Of these e-mails, 62% (191) are considered to be spam. The majority of these e-mails will be deleted unread.

So, if you’re one of the many internet marketers who use e-mail to promote a product, service or opportunity, how can you ensure that your carefully crafted e-mail messages get opened? What action can you take to keep your prospect’s finger off the delete key?

The answer is provided by the same survey and it may surprise you initially – but maybe when you give it a little thought it’ll make sense. According to Doubleclick’s survey, approximately 63% of consumers base their decision on whether to read or delete an e-mail based upon the information in the “from” field.
Simply put, most people check to see who sent the e-mail before they decide to open it or not.

Think about it for a minute – isn’t that the same as what you do? Don’t you usually tend to read e-mails from correspondents you know and trust in preference to strangers?

So how, precisely, do you first become known to and then become trusted by your potential customers? For sure, this is something that’s easier said than done – but it can be done and it’s well worth the effort.

In the first place don’t spam. This is critical. If you spam you will become known to your prospect – but for all the wrong reasons. Your e-mail messages will be trashed unread and you might lose your internet account.

Use permission e-mailing. Build a list of opt-in e-mail subscribers. Use a sign up form on every page of your website – most good autoresponders will autogenerate the code for one of these. Use a special “gateway” page where people can join your list. Give away free reports, e-books, white papers etc. as an incentive to join your subscriber list.

Once you have their e-mail address, feed these into an autoresponder (this can be automated for you) and use it to send them regular e-mails. These can be pre-loaded, one-off special broadcasts or a mixture of both.

Provide your subscribers with useful information. Don’t assault them with a daily hard sell and don’t send them information or offers unrelated to the original topic in which they expressed an interest.

Intersperse your information with relevant offers which they may find interesting. You can offer slight variations on the original theme but keeping a tight focus will increase your conversion rate.

It’s that easy – it really is. Grow your opt-in list and provide your subscribers with real and valuable information. Yes – it takes time and effort, two commodities which many online “marketers” seem reluctant to invest – but the end results will be well worth it.

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