This is, of course the biggest question. What do you send out to your list?
Firstly you can send hand written content every single email. This is the best option available to you, but if you have many lists it is not practical. This is best done on your one or two “pet” projects.
Secondly, you can load up an autoresponder sequence with content that you have either written yourself, paid someone to write, or bought.
The second option is the most feasible because if you are trying to write each email specifically, you are going to be a very busy person!
The best approach is to use an autoresponder sequence for all your niche lists and then for your main or favourite list you send hand written content each message. The hand written approach gets the best response from your subscribers, but you can’t do it in every niche.
Your readers are going to want valuable content. There are people who blast out sales message after sales message every single day, and these are people who end up with a high unsubscribe rate or low open rate.
By all means sell to them in every email, but don’t just sell and not provide information, particularly in non Internet Marketing lists. They are even less tolerant of constant selling than Internet marketers. Marketers tend to be looking out for hot new products and so are open to sales messages, but outside of this niche they are not as open.
You need to condition your subscribers so that they know what to expect from you. Don’t be frightened to email them or sell to them. Your best approach is to always provide valuable information and soft sell in every email, but once every 3 or 4 do a hard sell or pure pitch.
What has been known to work well is to send a free gift prior to sending the sales message, a few days before. This makes them feel grateful towards you and so they view your sales message more favourably.
If you don’t condition them to expect sales messages from you and all they ever get is information then they are going to be well and truly shocked when they get a sales message and you may find you get a high level of unsubscribes.
When writing to your list use their name in the body of the email and in the subject line. Outside of the Internet marketing niche, this amazes people and they think it is a personal email written specifically to them.
Write to them as if you are talking to them face to face. That kind of communication works much better than trying to write in a more formal way. It comes across as friendly and puts them at ease.
Make sure the subject line is something that intrigues them to open the email without being an outright lie. Subject lines such as “You’ve got Cash {firstname}” or similar result in a high level of subscribers leaving your list.
Be honest in the subject line and let them know what is inside the email. Be very careful about using subject lines like “Bad News” and others as these have actually had negative results due to them being over used.
Your list has specifically requested that they receive information from you and so you need to email them. Marketers who have lists and do not email them are losing money by not being in contact with their list. Use your list as a valuable asset but remember there are real people at the end of each email you send.
Monitor your open rate and your unsubscribe rate so you can see if a particular email did really well, or really badly. This will help you improve your emails in order to maximize your open rate and minimize your unsubscribe rate.