How To Start Email Marketing

eMail Marketing Simplified!!!

One of the essential steps to a truly successful e-mail marketing campaign is creating your very own mailing list.

Every e-mail marketer knows that the key to online marketing is building a well-targeted, relevant and responsive opt-in mailing list. This is because they know that success comes from building relationships with a very large subscriber base. The relationship you build here is important and that’s why today I am going to tell you the difference between the Opt-In and Opt-Out mailing lists and how to create your very own mailing list using AWeber.

Building a strong, relevant mailing list can take hard work and effort but the rewards are worth it. Ask any successful marketer to name his most valuable business asset and he will, more than likely say ” My Opt-in Mailing List!”

If you want to succeed in emailing, you should always create your own list with valid and up-to-date email addresses on it. How? Keep on reading…


THE OPT-IN LIST

The Opt-In mailing list is perhaps this is the most straightforward one of all mailing lists. An opt-in list is one with which users must take some action to subscribe and typically, this involves filling out a Web-based sign-up form. Surely, a list consisting of people who actively add themselves to it (as opposed to a list of people who passively allow themselves to be added) is more responsive and produces more results and much fewer complaints.

The problem with an opt-in list is that third party persons can (and sometimes do) add others to lists. For that reason, there are different types of Opt-In list:

Conifirmed Opt-In: Confirmed opt-in lists confirm your subscription by e-mail as soon as your name has been added to the list. They allow you to unsubscribe immediately by replying or clicking on a link within the email, for example like this one:

You received this email because you or someone else added your email address to our mailing list. If you would prefer not to receive this newsletter in the future, please, reply with the word Remove in the Subject line, or click on the link below:

remove@domain.com?Subject=remove

In this case, even if someone signs you up for a bunch of newsletters you don’t want, you’re alerted immediately and can take the appropriate measures…

Double Opt-In: A double opt-in list means not only must the user take an action to add himself to a list, but he then receives a confirmation of his subscription. He must reply to be added to the list.

This message is to verify that you wish to have your email address yourname@domain.com added to the Most Excellent newsletter

You MUST reply to this message to have your email address added to our list.This is to ensure that someone doesn’t add your address to our list without your prior knowledge or consent.

Unless you respond to this email, your address is not added to our mailing list!

This is done to ensure that the customer did not subscribe by mistake or somebody else did not subscribe him to receive your regular email. Even if a third part person attempts to add somebody without his permission, that confirmation, that second step requiring action, means if the customer does nothing he won’t be added to the list. Requiring two active and intentioned steps makes for the cleanest list possible. Raising the bar and requiring two actions means the highest response rates and the lowest complaint rates.

So … let’s do it!

How To Create A Double Opt-In Mailing List Using Aweber.

1) Visit: http://www.aweber.com :: It is an incredibly useful and highly recommend service for creating and managing mailing lists and sending out promotional e-mails.

2) Create yourself an Aweber account. – You can try out Aweber for just 1$ for the first month.

3) Once you have an active Aweber account, login to your Aweber dashboard and click on ‘create and manage lists’ and then click on ‘Create new list’.

4) Enter list name, from name, From Email address, Contact address. You can take care of the branding of your email too. You can specify your company logo, your website URL and your signature. Once done, click on save settings.

5) Next, customize your double opt-in message: You can customize the message and give more personal touch to confirmation email. Remember this is most important setting, as most of Email subscribers never confirm their subscription. So you have to make this Email appealing so that user will confirm their subscription right away. When you’re done, click on Preview and click on ‘save settings.’

6) Finally, click on Web Form at the top to create the form through which your mailing list subject will sign up and add the html code it provides you into your website wherever you would like the sign-up form to appear.

It’s really that simple and I guarantee you it is massively successful.

AVOID THE OPT-OUT LIST!

You should only use opt-in mailing lists; you should always avoid using an opt-out list, even if it may be tempting to begin with or seem easier.

An opt-out list is one to which email addresses are added completely without the user’s knowledge or permission. At best there was a prior relationship between the sender and the recipient. At worst it is a pure spam. For the love of God, DO NOT SPAM!

Obviously an opt-out list has the lowest response rate and the highest complaint rate. If you’re going down this path, you’ll have to deal with it.

Confirmed Opt-Out

A confirmed opt-out list is one that sends a confirmation to intended recipients when their email addresses are added to the list. This confirmation usually lets the recipient know that his email address was added to the list and allows him to unsubscribe by replying to the email or clicking a link within the body of the message.

A confirmed opt-out list can be bad for business also if the user thinks the confirmation letter is spam and does not bother to reply to this message.