Yep – you want that email to be opened!

After all, if it’s never opened then there is no chance of your message being seen and, with the ever increasing amounts of email traffic and demands on their time, most people’s initial tendency is to delete anything that they don’t feel is interesting or important to them.

So how do you give yourself the best chance of your email messages actually being opened?

Here are some quick tips to show you how to get your emails read by your list:

Have a powerful subject line: the whole purpose of your subject line is to get the email opened.  Try using headlines that either creates curiosity or spark a sense of controversy.

Personalise the subject line: writing as message as though you are talking to a friend (by using your subscribers first name) achieves an open rate of 40.9% as opposed to a 28.9% open rate where no personalisation is used.

Send your message on the right day: did you know that the day that you send your message to your subscribers has a big impact on the average open rate?

The average open rates of HTML and text email newsletters is 29.7%. Looking at little closer at the statistics we can see that the average open rate on a Sunday is 41.1%, Saturday 36.7% and Monday 23.2%

Send them at the right time: as with the day, the time that you send you message also has an impact. A message sent at 8am EST has an open rate of 50.6%, 9am EST 33.7% and 3-4am EST only 19%

Seems like it might make sense to send your key messages at the weekend!

Re-send messages to the ‘non-opens’: most email services will allow you to identify which of your subscribers did not open your email. Select the email message that you sent and re-send it to those subscribers within 48 hours. There may be a host of reasons why they did not open your first message, so just send it again.

Make sure people want to hear from you!: obviously your subscribers are more likely to open an email message from you if they like and trust you and feel that you are interested in them and provide valuable information or content.

Building such a relationship takes time and  a consistent approach. This is made much easier if you are not always trying to ‘sell them something’. Providing valuable and free information, tools and resources that may be helpful to them, interspersed with your offers is a better way to build your relationships.

There you have it. If email marketing is an important part of your strategy for communicating with your prospects or customers I hope you found these tips useful.

Remember, achieving success in your online efforts is not about the size of your list – its about the relationship you have with your list and building that relationship has to start with your email message being read in the first place.

]]> http://whoismarkstephens.com/general/2011/02/how-to-get-your-emails-read-by-your-list.html/feed 0 http://whoismarkstephens.com/internet-marketing-tools/2011/02/the-easy-way-to-use-twitter-for-your-business.html#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://whoismarkstephens.com/internet-marketing-tools/2011/02/the-easy-way-to-use-twitter-for-your-business.html#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:01:30 +0000 Mark Stephens http://whoismarkstephens.com/?p=2174 Continue reading →]]> Twitter is a great way to promote your business and communicate with a targeted audience who may just be interested in what you have to say!

However, if the prospect of manually ‘tweeting’ all day, searching for followers and following people yourself does not fill you with joy here is a great tool that I use to automate the process.

This powerful software enables you (automatically) to:

• Build your own targeted list of people to follow
• Search for specific users by profile data
• Follow followers of another user
• Follow back those who follow you
• ‘Unfollow’ those who are not following you
• Build, schedule and post your ‘tweets’
• Retweet
• Send out thank you messages to new followers…

Click the banner above, watch the free demonstration – and then decide for yourself

Now as we all know Facebook has rules, but unfortunately these rules can be a little ‘blurry’ and they certainly change from time to time.These two factors have led to many people having their accounts deactivated!

If you’re using Facebook as a means of Networking and Marketing online you’re probably all too aware of the pain it would cause you if your Facebook account was suddenly disabled

If you are like me you want to download and backup your Facebook data just in case!

I’ve shot this short video to show you how easily it can be done, so go ahead and get yours backed up now!

It may be to give up smoking, to take control of our financial future, to lose weight or maybe spend more time with our family and children – it’s different for everyone.

Well we’re already one week onto the New Year and I wonder how many of us made such resolutions and have already broken them?

Here’s a scary fact for you – 1 in 3 New Years resolutions are broken in the first week!

Why does this happen? – If we really want to make a change for the better why can’t we just do it?

I’ve shot this short video for you to talk a little about why so many people fail and what you can do to improve your chances of success – whatever that is for you.

I hope you enjoy it!

Although it may not be viewed as a ‘sexy’ means of effective, free traffic generation, nevertheless, it still works and should not be ignored – and certainly if your online business is fairly new, you’re not yet earning a six figure income online and you don’t yet have sufficient funds to add paid advertising to your armoury!

Writing high quality articles, and submitting them to article directories for publishing, has the major benefits of:

• Positioning you as an ‘expert’ within your niche – and a ‘go-to’ person for information.
• Providing a back-link to your website to help with SEO (search engine optimisation).
• Providing the opportunity for your article to be picked up by a third party and shared with others (it’s gone viral!)

But there are other ways that you can use the same article to drive even more traffic to your website. Here are three examples:

Publish to Web 2.0 sites

Web 2.0 sites, such as Squidoo™, Hubpages™, Zimbio™ and Weebly™, are a great way to share your articles and provide other associated content (if you wish) to your target audience. These sites are also FREE, just create your own profile and add your content.

Publish as a pdf

Websites such as Scribd™, issuu™ and You Publish™ are online communities where people both publish and read documents, books, manuals and presentations.

Most word processing packages allow you to create a pdf from any word document at the click of a mouse. So why not create a pdf of your article (you can even put your own links into it) and share to increase the opportunity for anyone to find it – and, more importantly, increase the chance of them finding their way to your website!

Publish as a slide presentation

Take the SAME article and now turn it into a slide-show.

This will only take you seconds! Take the headings of your article and use them as the headings for your slide. The simply take your article content and break it into bullet points (no more than 5 per slide) and there’s your presentation.

You can create your presentation using your own application or, if you don’t have one, use a free account with google™ docs.

Using a free site like Slideshare™ is yet another method of re-positioning the SAME article to get even more exposure on the web!

So there you have it – 3 great ways to use an article to produce even more content for you to share on the web, extend your profile and even attract more visitors to your website!

You’ve already done the hard work by creating the article, so why not go one stage further and spend a few more minutes to implement these powerful ‘cut and paste’ effective free traffic generation strategies.

This might sound obvious to you but sometimes, in the search for the latest and greatest traffic strategy or the next wonder product, it can be easy to lose focus on this.

Building a relationship with your subscribers, prospects and customers that is based on credibility, trust and confidence, will ensure your business continues to thrive and grow.

So, what are the things you can do to establish and maintain this position?

Inform!

Most people come online to do one thing – and that is to search for information, whether that’s about a product they want to buy or just a topic they want to learn more about.

Helping your customers, by giving them relevant and useful information, goes a long way to positioning yourself as a ‘worthwhile’ place to visit and some may even ‘bookmark your site’ and visit you again.

Eventually, as this relationship builds, they may well become customers of yours.

Give!

A great business is not the one based on you doing all the ‘taking’. By providing value to your customers, over and above what they would normally expect, or even experience, will ensure that you build a relationship where they will continue to buy from you, time and time again!

As an example let’s say you’re in the ‘Make Money Online’ market.

In today’s environment more and more people are looking to the Internet to build their own successful business online and secure their own financial independence- maybe even earn a six figure income online!

It’s a huge market and one of the principles of finding a  worthwhile target market is to find a ‘hungry audience’ -  so this market niche fits the bill.

But it’s also hugely competitive! The only way to succeed is to be prepared to ‘give away’ valuable information that will help your audience – and give away lots of it!!

Maybe a e-book on how to get monetise Twitter™, how to earn a living from writing articles, how to make money on Facebook™ – you get the idea.

Now I know what you might be saying – “hey, I’m running a business here!”

But ask yourself this question – who would you be most likely to buy from? The person or company that gave you masses and masses of extra value or a one-dimensional relationship where you only ever got what you paid for?

Become An Expert!

Becoming an ‘expert’ in your market space will position you as the go-to guy (or girl ).

If you do this correctly, by participating in relevant forums, posting helpful content on other people’s blogs, writing informative articles on your topic and sharing stuff on the social networks, you will position yourself as an authority in your market niche.

Sure it takes a little time and effort – but this is your business and all businesses have to be built, one step at a time.

Now you might be saying to yourself – but I’m not an ‘expert’ in anything!

Let me stop you there! It only takes 30 days to become an expert. What! – you don’t believe me. Let’s take a look at the definition of an expert:

“a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation -  and in a particular area of study”.

Don’t you think that if you’re building a business you might have done some research into your market before you started?

Don’t you think you may be able to gather valuable knowledge and share it? – it’s all over the Internet!

Don’t you think that you’ll need to educate yourself on different skills as your business grows? – just share what you learn!

Don’t you think that, just as a natural consequence of your business being a huge focus of yours, you will learn from other people in your niche about what to do and what not to do? – just share it!

There you go – simply because your whole focus is on your business and your market it’s impossible for you NOT to learn about tips and trick, effective strategies, associated topics etc, etc… then just make the information available.

Whoosh – I was on a roll there! OK, rant over…

Let me sum this up for you:

To earn a six figure income, or maybe even a seven figure income online, you must remember that your customers and prospects are your greatest asset.

Attracting them and retaining them depends on you providing real value over and above what they could possibly expect – go on, astound them!

Do this and you will create a lasting relationship based on trust, credibility and confidence.

A last tip for you – the next time you’re looking for information, or maybe even to buy something, and someone makes it a ‘special experience’ for you, think about how they did it and learn from it!

Let’s say your goal is to earn a Six Figure Income online – should you tell anyone?

Here’s an interesting spin on whether you should tell other people about your dreams and goals. Watch the video and make your own mind up – I think you’ll find it interesting…

Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is still one of the most effective free methods of increasing visitors to your website and building your credibility within your market niche. Once you establish that credibility, gain followers (build a list) and establish a relationship with them, you are well on your way to building a six figure income online – with this one strategy alone!

The beauty of any article  is that, once you have written and submitted it, your article will go on ‘working for you’ for years to come. It’s on the web available for anyone and everyone to see – and you have a link to your website (or offer, or opt-in page) that will help you build your list of subscribers.

Additionally you can use the same article topic in so many different ways that will help to build your online presence and dominate your niche.

10 ways to re-position articles to help build your six figure income online

Let’s say you’re in the fishing niche and you’ve written an article on carp fishing…

Take the same article and create at least nine variations of it and then submit them to various article directories. These variations could take the form of:

• Tips on successful…
  
• Frequently asked questions about…
  
• Review of…
• How to land a…
  
• Top 10 lists of…
  
• 5 steps to…
• Mistakes and errors to avoid…
• Myths about…
• Rules to follow…
• Create a quiz – people love them!
  
• Stories about… we like reading stories
  
• Checklist – before you set out…

Rinse and repeat to a six figure income online…

Follow this process for each article topic and rest assured you will create a presence, a buzz around yourself that will draw people to you as a respected authority within your niche – and your list of subscribers will grow.

Once you’ve achieved that (and it can be done very quickly) you’re well on the way to achieving your dream of a six figure income online.

But that’s not all – in my next post I’ll discuss how you can use each article and, within minutes, turn it into different types of content, using the SAME information.

Once you master this process you can then outsource it to a third party – and now you’re into the realms of building an automated six figure income online – all from one original article!

One of the key requirements for earning a Six Figure Income online is your ability to send targeted traffic to your website, targeted traffic meaning visitors who may have an interest in your product or service.

In the Six Figure Mentors 2.0 we teach all of these strategies but stress the importance of focusing on one at a time and mastering it – before you move onto the next one.

Paid advertising methods, such as Google Adwords™ or Facebook Ads™, are often seen as the fastest way to a six figure income but,  for many newcomers, they simply don’t have the budget to start this way.

Earn A Six Figure Income Online – 7 Tips For Getting Free Traffic

The good news is you can build a six figure income online by using free and effective internet marketing strategies to attract visitors to your website – and today I’ll suggest a few of the methods you could use.

7 Free traffic strategies for building a Six Figure Income Online

• Article Writing – often seen as ‘unsexy’ and boring, writing good articles, that feature quality content, is still a very effective way to drive traffic to your website. Submit your article, with a link to your website, to directories such as eZine articles.
  

• Facebook™ – the largest social networking site in the world, Facebook™ provides you with the opportunity to put a link to your website on your profile and information pages. By building up your list of friends you increase the opportunity for people to visit your website.

• Twitter™ – another social media site that allows you to place a link to your website in your ‘bio’ box. Additionally you can include links to your website or landing pages in your ‘tweets’ – but don’t over do it!

• YouTube™ – the largest video site in the world, YouTube is free. Again you have the opportunity to include your ‘bio’ with a link to your website. In addition you can place this link in the ‘description’ section of each video you make.

• Social bookmarking sites - e.g. Stumbleupon, Digg – these are sites where you can store and share your content with anyone and you have the ability to ‘tag’ particular keywords that relate to your market niche, as well as adding a link to your website. These accounts are free to set up and give people the opportunity to ‘bookmark’ your site if they like your content.

• Post to other blogs – look for other well-maintained blogs within your market niche and post a worthwhile response to one of their posts.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – this is the process of optimising your blog and posts to give it the best chance of ranking for the keywords that relate to your niche. This is a whole topic in it’s own right and I cover the basics in another post. However, when done the right way, it will help your site to achieve a higher ranking in Google (and other search engines: e.g.Yahoo, Bing) and enable more visitors to find you. The key here is to find ‘keywords’ that relate to your niche that you have a chance of ranking for and posting LOTS OF valuable content for your readers – the search engines love content!!

There you go – 7 free and effective strategies for driving traffic to your website that will build your presence and move you towards earning that Six Figure Income online.

Each of these strategies (and others I will cover in another post) need to be implemented in the right way in order to be effective, but they are a good starting point for any newcomer. As your business grows and you master each of these six figure income strategies you should outsource them to a third party – but that’s a topic for another day!

In case you think they won’t be effective strategies for sending traffic to your website I want you to remember this:

Many people have been able to earn a Six Figure Income online by using these effective free traffic strategies alone!

I found this great, FREE tool today that helps you to increase the opt-in rate on your website – and that’s what we’re really after as Internet Marketers!

As a member of the Six Figure Mentors I constantly teach (maybe even preach!) that one of the keys to building a successful online business is your ability to build a list of targeted subscribers. Once on your ‘list’ your aim is to build a relationship with your subscribers by providing them with huge value and becoming a trusted source of information.

You may have heard the phrase – “the money is in the list”. Well it’s wrong – the money is in your relationship with your list – but that’s a topic for another day…

So,What Is Optincrusher?

Optincrusher is a program, developed by a guy called Daniel Watrous, that you can download for free, that installs an animated bar at the bottom of your web page. This bar has the benefit of getting your visitors attention – without interrupting them – unlike those annoying pop-ups that cover the page you want to read!

Once you’ve got their attention, and providing you have a compelling and relevant offer, your chances of increasing your opt-in rates can be greatly enhanced with this tool.

The Key Features Of Optincrusher

• Simple to install – it takes minutes!

• Can be integrated with all major auto-responder services

• Fully customizable to suit the theme of your website and your offer

You also get access to a series of videos that walk you through the entire process of installing it on your website – so even if you have NO technical skills at all you can do it – you simply watch and copy the steps on each of the short videos and BINGO – you’re there!

To get access to it simply visit the optincrusher website.

There you have it – to increase opt-in rates and start building those relationships with your customers take a look at this great little tool -  optincrusher