Is It Too Late for E-Mail Marketing
Is It
Too Late For Email Marketing?
Copyright © Charlie Page
There seems to be a growing sentiment on the Internet that email
marketing is in big trouble. Only this morning I read one report
that claims that "95% of email marketing messages" won’t be
deliverable in the near future. Every day we read new, and
increasingly intense, articles about how Habeas will put us all out
of business.
Yet in the face of what is undeniably a troubling situation, I know
people who have only started marketing via email (primarily using
ezines) in the last few months and are prospering.
Given these two seemingly opposite pieces of evidence, I wonder if
it’s time to revisit the basic tenets of successful email marketing?
In that light, I offer these five ways to succeed with email
marketing in any environment.
One. Understand that it takes work. If there really is an automated
way to spend a few hours a week working at an online business and
make big bucks I respectfully ask to see the proof. Feel free to
email me with the details, but only if you are personally making
over $200,000 a year. 
The Internet provides a wonderful opportunity to anyone willing to
work, learn and apply the skills they gain. It’s also the fastest
way short of Las Vegas to go broke if you are looking for a quick
buck. Like any business, look at your online business as a long-term
venture and you will do well. Which brings us to point #2.
Two. Commit to quality. Want to know the absolute, #1, surefire way
to beat the spam filters at their own game? Produce information that
is so valuable that readers will take action in order to receive it
and notice when they don’t receive it.
It’s all too easy to blame filters for non-delivery when in fact
readers don’t take what we say seriously because we don’t stand out
from the crowd. We, as email marketers, have an obligation to
produce content of such high quality that readers clamor for it.
Doing this is actually quite easy if what you have to say is
relevant to your reader’s life and comes from your heart. Commit to
quality and the marketplace will reward you.
Three. Be personal. I’ve spoken to so many people over the years
that said "I’m not a writer so I can’t produce an ezine (or write an
article, or a sales letter, etc.)" But once I see what they have
written I’m shocked by their insight, desire to succeed and skill.
Some of the best ezines I’ve ever read wouldn’t hold up to an
examination by a fourth grade English teacher … but they changed
my life by teaching me something. Do that, change their life and
teach them something, and your email marketing will be well
received.
Four. Be flexible. I can’t recall a time on the Net where being
flexible was more important than now. If spam filters are killing us
we must learn to adapt. We must be informed. We must adapt. We must
overcome. If our email does not get through we must find a way to
get the message to readers another way. If readers want HTML we give
it to them. If they want weekly editions vs. bi-weekly, we meet that
need. You will never go wrong meeting the needs of your readers.
Which leads to point five.
Five. Know your readers. Readers are individuals, just like you and
me. Great email marketing is a lot less about using pithy wording
and making an emotional appeal that it is about knowing and meeting
the needs of your subscribers.
The good news is that subscribers love to interact. They love to
tell you about their needs dreams and desires. The more you listen
the more you can meet those needs and make the profits you seek.
Is it too late to begin email marketing successfully?
No way.
Use the five suggestions above as a platform and begin to build your
email marketing business today. Just like the story of Chicken
Little, there will always be those who claim the sky is falling.
Don’t let them dissuade you from acting.
Commit to quality, be yourself and provide a product or service of
value. Combine those things with a little "sweat of the brow" and
you simply cannot help but doing well.
Charlie Page is the owner of the Directory of Ezines, the first and
most comprehensive list of quality ezines that accept advertising
available on the Internet. Charlie can show you how to sell more
products and earn more affiliate commissions using the Internet’s #1
marketing method … ezine marketing!
