A good majority of the money that I have used to support my Family over the years has come, in one way or another, from my email list. So for me to say that email marketing is valuable would be an understatement!

But, let me show you a few stats that one of my business partners came up with:

- The average email open rate is approximately 6.5 hours.
- The average SMS text message open rate is approximately 4 minutes.
- The delivery rate for email is approximately 26%.
- The deliver rate for SMS text messages is approximately 98%.

And to add to that, although I don’t know the exact numbers, I would say 99% of everyone 16 years old to … probably 65 or so own a cell phone.

Now let me ask you this: Which one sounds better to you? I know my answer is a resounding SMS.

But, don’t’ get me wrong, there will always be a place for email marketing. There will always be people who prefer email over text and there will always be situations where email is just the better option, so I don’t think SMS marketing is necessarily replacing Email marketing, but if your business DOES currently benefit from email marketing, then I BET it will benefit even more from SMS marketing!

These stats along with the incredible increase in SMS marketing over the past couple years got me and a couple business partners very interested in getting into this market…and we are…but I’ll save that for another day.

Today, I want to ask you, are you currently using some form of SMS marketing in your business? If not why? If I can generate enough revenue to drive a 6-figure business with email, then how much revenue can I generate with a different communication method that has PROVEN to be more efficient. That’s my line of thinking… hopefully it gives you something to think about as well.

You can watch the video below. Please just ignore the last few seconds of audio. I told you I’m not very good at it yet

And please let me know your thoughts below. I read them all and I’m always interested in what you have to say!

http://www.NewAgeEmailMarketing.com/

This is the exact winning strategy I use in order to earn approximately $1,000+ with each and every promotional email I send out with what many would consider a “Tiny” list!

This is a very simple technique that anyone can use and the best part is, it’s Ethical and it actually helps people! As a matter of fact, the entire process is based on helping people and not being a sleazeball by sending promotion after promotion!

Take a look at the site, where I explain in more detail, provide some screenshots of the very impressive results of only a couple of the promotions I’ve sent out to my “small” list and reveal the extremely low price, and my reasoning behind that price: http://www.NewAgeEmailMarketing.com/

And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether on the report, or on email marketing in general!

The obvious answer to the inexperienced marketer is “sell it.” But, an experienced marketer will tell you a free report, or any kind of product for that matter, can earn you MUCH more money in the long run, and possibly even short term as well, than a product you sell.

Obviously there are situations when selling a product will benefit you more than giving it away. For instance, if you already have a large list, promoting a free product to that list isn’t going to help you at all, so you may want to charge for a product that is sent out to your list for extra profit. But in most cases a free report will do you more good, as you’ll be building that list and you can give those who are currently on your list something of value for absolutely free, not even an opt-in.

How I do it

Before I go any further, I want to make one thing very clear. Although your ultimate goal is to obviously make a whole bunch of money your reports/products MUST be useful and do exactly as you claim!

This whole system succeeds for me because I’m able to help people and they respect me for it. I get the occasional a**hole who opts into my list then gets made when I send him emails, but over I’ve been able to gain respect by helping.

Promote something in every email and you’ll fail. Offer crappy products and you’ll fail!

1. So far I’ve written 3 free reports. I required opt-in (name and email) through a nice looking squeeze page in order to download each of them, or all of them when opting in through this blog (above.) These are all quality reports, where I really provide some excellent info! That will probably be the hardest part for most inexperienced marketers, but it can still be done… I almost guarantee there is something you can offer for free that people will want to have. The reports I’ve written are:

- The $5 Mini-Site Formula (I no longer own this product)
- The Easy SEO Report
- The “Make Money Online” Niche Exposed

2. I collected resources for everything people need in order to successfully implement every single thing I mention in the reports (templates, services etc.) These are all honest recommendations and links are included within each report, but those resources with affiliate programs include my affiliate link.

3. I started a Coaching Forum where I charge VERY cheap rates ($24/month) for unlimited Question and Answers. They ask, I answer, it’s that simple. I answer every single question that is asked. This has done VERY well because people want help, but don’t want to pay $1,000 or more for 1-on-1 coaching.

3. With my autoresponder, I set up an automatic email at day two, for each of the reports (1 email for the 3 report package I offer from this blog) where I offer my personal help implementing the techniques. So, if someone opted into the $5 Mini-Site Formula, the email headline is something like “[firstname], Need my personal help with the Formula?” Of course this is taking them to my Coaching Forum where they get my personal help for $24/month.

4. Once they’ve received the auto email inviting them to my forum, they go into my inactive subscriber database, which is easily run my my autoresponder, GetResponse. Now approx. every 6 days I send them an email, but I’m not promoting a product every time, like so many others do. The simple system I use works like this:

Email 1 – send them to a free, informative blog post or other resource.
Email 2 (6 days later) – send them to a free, informative blog post or other resource, once again.
Email 3 (6 days after email 2) – send them to a product/service I’ve personally tried and recommend then I always try to work out some kind of discount or special. If I haven’t came across one I like, I simply don’t promote anything and start the cycle over.

That’s it. From time to time I’ll send out an email before the 6 day mark or even longer, depending on what’s going on, but I try my best to stick to that and it’s worked very well for me. If you arrived here from my last email, you know I just send an email yesterday that happens from time to time if I find something I really want to share with you, like the article directory list I shared yesterday.

How I get Subscribers

Obviously none of this would be possible without a list, right? Well, you may be relieved it wasn’t that hard… I don’t think so anyway.

After creating by reports I outsourced a professional squeeze page design for each report. I then wrote the “copy” and just stated exactly what they get etc. Obviously you want to have a little hype in there, but don’t misrepresent your product.

I did several things to build subscribers, but none were extremely hard to do:

1. Write and submit articles related to each report sending them to the squeeze page in the signature of the article.

2. I put up a WSO at the Warrior Forum. There is a $20 charge to post it, but it’s well worth it. I’ve always been able to offer free reports there, and as far as I know it’s still allowed.

3. I registered and participated in related forums. Since my reports are all targeting fellow Internet Marketers, I participated at the Warrior Forum etc. and included (and still do) links to my squeeze pages in my signature.

4. I announced them on my blog. OK, you may be thinking “great, what if I don’t have a blog as established as yours?” Don’t worry about it. Believe it or not, I’ve received a majority of my opt-ins from #1-#3. This blog does bring in opt-ins everyday, but the techniques above do as well.

Using basically that overall technique, I’ve been able to build a list of 7,000+ opt-ins, which many experienced email marketers would say is very little, but I’ve been able to leverage it into literally thousands of dollars every month in recurring and one-time payments!

My last promotion alone, for FirePow, brought in $1,500/month in recurring commissions. My coaching forum brings in a similar amount each and every month. I also have several other products that bring in recurring commissions each and every month, just from one email and we’re not even counting one-time promotions or ebooks etc.!

It’s very powerful, those who take this post seriously can and will transform their business and start making serious cash online!

That shouldn’t come as a big surprise to you if you’ve been at this online thing for any time at all. This post wasn’t written to try to convince you to start one, I’m assuming you’ve already been told “the money is in the list” hundreds of times and it’s a very true statement.

However, for most, it’s not about the size of the list, it’s about how you use it

In other words, a list of 100,000 subscribers means nothing if you haven’t gained the trust of your subscribers…it won’t convert!

You may know that I didn’t get serious about my own list building efforts until early this year. I’ve had a list for several years, but to be honest with you I wasn’t confident in my own email marketing abilities, so the list didn’t convert. I was lucky to make ONE sale on a promo back then!

What I Was Doing Wrong!

There were 2 things I was doing wrong back then, that I’m now doing correctly:

1. I wasn’t REALLY helping my list! – I was taking the advice of so many email marketing “guru’s” and promoting everything under the sun, whether I honestly recommended it or not. If it had a good affiliate program I promoted it. The only thing I was concerned with was making money and as a result I made very little money!

2. I was targeting the wrong crowd. – I was promoting advanced Internet Marketing products to people brand new to making money online. (I go into much more detail about this is my recent, free report (“The Make Money Online Niche Exposed.”) Much like Dan Kennedy marketing offline (direct,) if you target the wrong crowd it doesn’t matter how good of a marketer you are, you’re not going to make a penny.

What I’m Doing NOW!

This is very simple…I help people!

Who’s list would you rather be subscribed to: Marketer A who constantly sells to you or Marketer B who sends you free information and only promotes products he/she honestly recommends? I know my answer and I know that’s the answer of mannnnny others because that’s what I do and it works extremely well!

Some Stats

For credibility purposes I’ll share some rough stats.

My list is composed of only 6,000 subscribers roughly. If you subtract duplicates (opted in multiple times for various reports etc.) and spam users, that number is actually much lower. That is NOTHING compared to some of the big names. I know there are people out there with lists of 20,000 or more, who can’t get their lists to perform nearly as effective as mine. Why? Because they sell, sell, sell and I give, give, sell!

Depending on the price, niche etc. I can generally bring in 50-100 sales per promotion. That may not sound like a very good conversion rate, but if you compare it to some of the claimed conversion rates of some of the big names and you factor in the duplicate subscribers and spammers, it’s actually very good.

My Email Marketing Strategy in a Nutshell

There are many strategies that could be used effectively, but I’ll share with you more or less what I’ve been doing.

This is very simple, yet effective!

I’ve collected a good majority of my subscribers through my free reports:

The Easy SEO Report
The $5 Mini-Site Formula (I no longer own this product)
The “Make Money Online” Niche Exposed

I write the report, put up a nice looking, professional squeeze page to collect names and emails and I promote the report on my blog, through article marketing, forums etc.

I send an email out roughly every 6 days (I use GetResponse.) I think that’s a good number because my subscribers don’t forget about me, yet they don’t get annoyed by me either.

I send them good, free information at least twice between promotions. Once I get to the promo mailer I only recommend a product I’ve actually used and like. If I haven’t found one I really like in that time-frame I just send out another free info post and skip that mailer!

I was initially hesitant to use my blog as a platform to feed my list content. I was worried that people would either unsubscribe from my mailing list or from my blogs RSS feed. That may be true, but everything seems to be working out just fine. My RSS numbers and list #’s are both growing. I do write some blog posts that don’t get sent out to my mailing list and I do send emails to my mailing list that don’t get published to the blog, so that gives incentive to stay on both.

That’s basically it folks! Retain your traffic. Once you’ve retained them HELP them and you’ll build trust and credibility!

Help people and they’ll help you!