Email Based Marketing - Serving vs Spamming

Conducting an effective email based marketing campaign starts with the realization that you want to forge a relationship with people on your opt-in list. These people have allowed you the opportunity to make contact by email with them. As an email marketer it is now up to you to make the most out of these contacts and it starts with building trust. One of the best ways to do this is by serving your list member in a way that is helpful and without expectations. Unfortunately many abuse the opportunity they have to maintain contact by email with people on their opt-in list resulting in a vast majority of these folks unsubscribing! Here are 3 common mistakes committed by people who forget about building trust or relationships with their list members. The results are they relentlessly spam them instead driving many to unsubscribe! Sending Only Promotions When you simply send nothing but promotional material to folks they see this as being spam and eventually unsubscribe. Remember you want to build a relationship with others and this involves 'extending' a helpful hand by sending useful information. Building trust is the first step you take with folks in order that they become more comfortable with you. Over time this trust will pay off in terms of the ease and effectiveness of any future promotional efforts. Hyper Promoting False or ridiculous claims are quickly identified by people who than tend to disregard any other messages from you as well. When you do promote to people on your opt-in list avoid the temptation of being too pushy or using too much hype. Remember, you have constant contact by email with these people so it is not necessary to 'go overboard' to get their attention through the use of hype. They will not appreciate it and will learn to have a lack of faith in what you say. Crowding Your List People are busy so give them their space when making contact by email. Contacting them too frequently will make you an annoyance. Weekly or bi-weekly contact will give people breathing room. A schedule like this will also help any 'urgent' messages you may send to stand out more thereby increasing the chance that they get read. Remember that you are trying to be helpful, but not to the point that you are regarded as a nuisance! Effective email based marketing starts with building trust and developing a relationship with people who have joined your opt-in list. The best way to do this is to serve them with plenty of useful tips and information without expecting anything in return. The responsible email marketer always puts their list members first but there are those that seem to forget. The 3 most common mistakes made by overly eager email marketers, as discussed above, lead to many eventually unsubscribing! It is important to remember, in regards to managing your list, it is better to serve than to spam. Just ask anyone who has ever opted out of such a list!