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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Copyright Page
Title: The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Author:
Published by: (Kim Matheson Biz Lab Online,
http://www.bizlabonline.co)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for
the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Copyright © 2014 by (Kim Matheson):
First Edition, 2014
Published in (Australia)
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Disclaimer
This book is designed to provide information on lists only. This information is provided and sold with the
knowledge that the publisher and author do not offer any legal or other professional advice. In the case of
a need for any such expertise consult with the appropriate professional. This book does not contain all
information available on the subject. This book has not been created to be specific to any individual’s or
organizations’ situation or needs. Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible.
However, there may be typographical and or content errors. Therefore, this book should serve only as a
general guide and not as the ultimate source of subject information. This book contains information that
might be dated and is intended only to educate and entertain. The author and publisher shall have no
liability or responsibility to any person or entity regarding any loss or damage incurred, or alleged to have
incurred, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book. You hereby agree to be bound by
this disclaimer or you may return this book within the guarantee time period for a full refund.
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Table of Contents
Why Build Lists?........................................................................................7
Permission Based email Advertising ......................................................9
Scheduling ............................................................................................11
How to Get Loads of Email Addresses on Your List ...............................12
How to Build a Targeted List ................................................................12
Give Aways ........................................................................................13
Free Reports ......................................................................................13
Software .............................................................................................13
Newsletter ..........................................................................................13
Successful Email Campaign Tips .........................................................14
Make Your Communication Timely, Useful and Digestible ...................15
Personalization .....................................................................................15
Plain Text or HTML ...............................................................................16
Market Testing ........................................................................................17
Five steps for testing: ...........................................................................17
1: Determine What to Test .................................................................17
2. Establish Measurements ................................................................18
3. Determine How to Test ..................................................................18
4, Evaluate and Implement ................................................................18
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Email Marketing Stats and Facts ............................................................19
List Maintenance ..................................................................................23
Squeeze Pages ..................................................................................23
Building Profitable Lists ......................................................................24
Glossary Definitions ................................................................................28
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Why Build Lists?
Most every business website
should be collecting email
addresses of prospective
customers. While your site
should also offer your visitors
the chance to purchase your
product or service the fact is
most sites have many more
visitors than buyers.
FACT: When a visitor leaves your site without taking the desired call to
action, the website has failed. Most visitors will never return;
The average consumer commonly requires 3 to 7 touches or ‘contacts’
with a product, service, or company before business is transacted.
Exposure can consist of website visits, email contact, a letter,
advertisements, a telephone call, and so on.
When you have email addresses you can contact prospects and
dramatically increase the odds of conversions. Most of your visitors are
high qualifying targets as they already have an interest in the product or
service.
Most website visitors do not buy on the first visit to a website. They do
not have enough information, are busy with other projects, might not
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have the money or credit available at the time, or could be still
comparison shopping,
You can build brand
awareness, credibility and
trust with email marketing.
If you are not collecting
email addresses you are
no doubt missing out on
significant volume of sales.
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
How to Start Collecting Email Addresses
There are many services that offer complete
email collection and list maintenance. Most
services enable you to create a simple form
that you can cut, paste, and embed into your
HTML on your website. These services offer
auto responders.
Permission Based email Advertising
When you can begin an email marketing campaign with a legitimate auto
responder service that has opt in features your email avoids being
labeled as ‘SPAM.’ Your email subscribers will have "opted-in" or given
you permission to email them. The recipients have opted to give you
their email address, which gives you permission to send them email.
Services such as mailchimp, Aweber and getresponse allow you to
create email forms for your website, automatic responses and maintain
your email address lists.
As soon as visitors opt in to provide you their email address they get an
email from you automatically. Subscriber names and e-mail addresses
are automatically added to a database. You have complete access and
control of your information.
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
The Double Opt In Option
You need at least one message set
up in your auto responder for
subscribers. That message is
instantly sent to each incoming
request from a subscriber.
A double opt in sends the recipient a
message similar to this:
Hello {FIRSTNAME},
Thank you for your interest in our
free report.
We want to be sure that you have
received this email and that it is the correct place to send you the report.
Just click on the link below to confirm that you have received this email
and your report will be sent to you, at this email address immediately.
{CONFIRM_LINK}
Thank you,
YOUR NAME
When you use a double opt in, the email address you collected will be
correct and you know the recipient read it.
Always include your contact information.
Make it as simple as achievable for your readers to unsubscribe. Ensure
your emails have an unsubscribe link that takes the visitor to a page
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where they can eliminate their address. You can ask them for feedback
as to why they are unsubscribing.
Scheduling
You can send personalized follow
up letters to subscribers on
predetermined dates. You can
create and edit forms at any time
and broadcast newsletters.
The more subscribers you have the
more people you have to market to.
Many businesses are converting
ten per cent and more of
subscribers! Email marketing to
your lists can be powerful.
You can set a schedule of what you are sending.
Example:
Week One - A second Thank You.
Week Two – New products or services.
Week Four – Your Newsletter
Week Six - Sales
Week Eight – Newsletter
Week Ten – Industry Information
Week Twelve- Newsletter
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
How to Get Loads of Email Addresses on
Your List
Make an offer they can’t refuse! People want to know one thing: what’s
in it for them. To get people to give up their coveted email addresses,
give them something of value. Put your subscriber option form on every
page of your website.
How to Build a Targeted List
Visitors to your website will be interested in
your emails and products or services but so will
others.
1. Ask your prospects and customers in the
real world if you can sign them up for your
newsletter.
2. Collect lists from other sources:
Professional trade organizations and others often have published
lists of members. Send them info about your free offer or news letter
with a link where they can opt in.
3. Put your URL on all your printed material and advertising.
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Give Aways
Ebooks are great ‘give away’ items when they are relevant and offer
value Hire a ghost writer if you are not a wordsmith. Include links to your
website and promote your business.
Free Reports
You can schedule your reports to arrive in your subscriber’s mailboxes
on specified days of the week/month that could have announcements,
how to lists, vendor lists, resource lists, and other relevant information.
Software
Software distributors have been using partial, timed, or use number
software trials for many years. Collect email addresses when subscribers
download.
Newsletter
Newsletters are tired and beaten for enticement for email opt-ins
however they still have value in specific industries.
Reports show up to fifty per cent in sales can be generated from a
newsletter auto-responder with consistent follow-ups over time.
Be certain your newsletter is pertinent to your viewers and information
valuable. The more important your readers discover your newsletters to
be, the more probable you will develop devoted fans.
Your writing should all be succinct and to the point. Headlines, sub
headlines, and numbered and bullet lists make your messages more
pleasant.
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Successful Email Campaign Tips
Here are five tips for your campaigns:
#1 – Create a Clean Look and Be Succinct
Keep your content concise and avoid bright or dark colors as text
backgrounds. Lighter background colors look cleaner and keep text
easier to read. Limit use to two font types and sizes.
#2 – Be Appealing
Color can help make attractive and interesting email. .
#3 - Your Brand
Your emails must have a consistent message and reinforce your brand.
Email templates can help you be consistent.
#4 – Your Call to Action
Your readers must know exactly what action they can take after reading
your email. Follow the AIDA Laws of Advertising; Attention, Interest,
Desire, Action. Call to actions can be placed throughout your email with
links or phone numbers in the beginning, middle, and end.
#5 - Preview Your Campaigns Before You Send
Test your email marketing pieces by sending them
to yourself before you broadcast them. They can
often appear completely different than what you
thought they would look like. Previewing your
email in the "text only" (non-HTML) format. Also
check the look of your letters without images.
Some email systems block images from view.
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Some readers will see your email in a preview pane first. These usually
show only the first few inches of your email or the subject. This is why
your subject and headline is so important.
There are many ways to set up your messaging formats and run. For
instance, in a newsletter, let your readers know how often they will be
receiving email from you and give HTML and text format options.
Make Your Communication Timely, Useful and Digestible
Timely – Whether seasonal or social, an outdated or off season letter
will put people off.
Valuable – ASK: Does your offer and information have value to your
prospects?
Digestible – Be succinct and use relevant terminology. .
Step Three: Be Creative
Create Interest and desire.
Personalization
Personalization is the single most important aspect of email. Always
request the subscriber's name in your email sign up forms.
Open Rate
The ‘open rate’ is the number of people who open a certain mailing.
While this information has some merit, know how this data is gathered
before making decisions. This is because the open rate statistics are
commonly based on HTML images that are downloaded when the
message is opened. If a recipient does not have HTML or if someone is
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not online when the message is opened they are not included. Also
some email programs that show a preview pane and that counts as
being opened.
Plain Text or HTML
HTML enables graphic email formatting though any readers who cannot
or will not open HTML mail. Solution: You can create
multipart/alternative messages that contain both a plain text and a HTML
section.
When a recipient cannot see an HTML message it is displayed in plain
text. .
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Market Testing
One small change can make a
big difference on your returns.
Learning what change is the
trick. Split testing will help you
find what works best at little or no
cost.
Five steps for testing:
1: Determine What to Test
Like controlled experiment, only make one change at a time. Testing the
different test or subject line, colors, fonts and so on against the
unchanged version, is called split testing.
 Subject lines - Create two different subject lines for the same email
communication.
 Long versus short copy
 Different wording and vocabulary
 Special offers - Create two different offers.
Other tests might consist of the time of day or day of the week you send,
with images or without, varying calls-to-action, where you locate a call-toaction button or link, and more.
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2. Establish Measurements
You can measure by:
 website traffic
 response to an offer
 sales
 page opens
 click-through
 Feedback
3. Determine How to Test
Either send two dissimilar emails to everyone, preferably several weeks
apart, or divide your list in two and test each half.
A pre-test can provide the knowledge that can greatly progress your
overall response rate. Pick a random sampling of 100 people from your
list, and split test 50 each.
4, Evaluate and Implement
Results are quick with email teats: usually just two to three days. Then
you will know which email got the better open rate and conversion.
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Email Marketing Stats and Facts
11)
As of 2013, there are 3.6 billion email accounts.
2) 54% of emails sent by businesses are marketing messages.
3) 838 billion marketing messages have been sent in 2013.
4) 91% of consumers check their email daily.
5) 74% of consumers prefer to receive commercial communications
via email.
1
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats-list
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6) The average click through rate for B2B marketing emails in Q2
2013 was 1.7%.
7) 60% of marketers believe email marketing produces positive ROI
(Marketing Sherpa).
8) 66% of consumers have made a purchase online as a result of an
email marketing message.
9) Email marketing has an ROI of 4,300%.
10) 59% of companies are integrating email and social channels
together.
11) 76% of email opens occur in the first two days after an email is
sent.
12) 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices.
13) Only 11% of emails are optimized for mobile.
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14) 69% of mobile users delete emails that aren't optimized for
mobile.
15) Gmail opens have decreased by 27% since May.
16) 25% of emails are opened on iPhones.
17) Suppressing anyone in your list who hasn't engaged with your
emails in over a year increases your deliverability rate by 3-5%
immediately.
18) 17% of marketers don't track or analyze email metrics for their
organization.
Full time Internet marketer Dr. Lin Wilder says “if you listen to the
cyberspace gurus speak about the future of emailing, they will claim that
email marketing is dead for the simple reason that more and more
people in the 20's lack email addresses and rely on their Facebook and
or Twitter accounts for communicating with their friends.
But a recent review of the subject in the Harvard Business Review
provides a very different perspective.
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
Of a large survey of email accounts-(2600 accounts in the US, Australia
and South Africa) author Barry Gill found that emails are not dead; they
are "evolving."
A surprising 42% of an average of 11,680 emails received per years is
considered to be essential or critical to these 2600 working people... with
only 8% regarded as spam. Compared with social media, instant
messaging and other methods of communication, emails were preferred
by close to two thirds.
Why?
Because emails could be found easily-whether sent to individuals or to
groups, emails tend to improve accountability in the minds of users.
How then do these facts apply to marketers?
You can feel justified if you decide to return with renewed vigor to your
email newsletter lists- emailing is not going the way of the dinosauraccording to the Direct Marketing Association, emailing has an ROI of
4300% for smart marketers.
But smart marketing means a list of subscribers there because of the
value they receive. And that means relevant content for our readers.
Experiment with open rates; rather than mailing in the mornings when
the in boxes are crammed with work related messages, try mailing in the
late afternoon or even evenings. Recent data have shown that most
holiday shopping was done during the evening.
Consider Cosmo headlines for articles or messages- remember the
headlines of the articles you used to read in the magazine Cosmopolitan
years ago? Like some of those that made you buy the issue? Try some
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funky headlines to see if your open rate just might inch up another 2 or
even 5 %.”
List Maintenance
Help your subscribers stay on your list; every email should have a new
email address option so people can add or update an email address.
Address changes must be easy and accessible on your website and in
you emails.
Squeeze Pages
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Squeeze pages are used to capture email addresses and can work well
when design right. The best copywriting tactics, video, and great
headlines are all important. Your squeeze page should not include any
distractions like other advertising.
Building Profitable Lists
Marketer German Calvo says “2If you have been doing internet marketing
for some time, perhaps being an affiliate and not yet started building your
list, even though you have heard 'the money is in the list', this is the time
now to decide to start and so this '7 easy ways to build a successful
profitable list' article is a simple good guide for you to begin with.
Or you are already doing list building but losing money, and need to
focus your efforts on how to overcome this situation, again what you are
going to read further is going to help you.
From the second situation, you can start to better serve your audience
and this means building some rapport with your subscribers by giving
them a lot of value up front without even thinking of making a return for
your costs. So, you may have a list but you are not keeping a steady
contact offering them a lot of value.
And because your mailing is not consistent and no good free content is
offered, your list does not really know, like and trust you resulting in no
orders, causing you to lose money both in time and in auto-responders'
costs.
2
http://germancalvoblog.com/blog/
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If you have not yet done it, starting with making your list, an only opt-in
list, thus avoiding the pitfalls of being accused as a spammer, will make
your email campaigns safer and more responsive, because you know
they double opted in (this is even preferable to single opt-in). This means
you are not sending anything out to them without their consent.
In addition to that, make abundantly clear they can un-subscribe any
time they want, and still remain friends. This way they constantly know
they are there because they want to be a part of your list, receiving what
they are interested in, for as long as they want it.
To follow that, and as a safety of your methods is concerned, do not ever
send to your list unrelated information to their interests or incorrect,
unwanted, obscene or pornographic/shocking material or any other
information that may offend them. Doing so is a sure way of finding
yourself in deep trouble with the law.
Staying away from being controversial is preferable even though quite a
few marketers resource to this tactic to create a lot of traffic for their
sites. Make sure also your content is to be received by the right
audience, never cater for minors so make it doubly clear who is not
authorized to receive your content.
You may be unprofitable now but if you adopt these clear strategies, you
must believe that persevering with list building will ultimately pay as long
as you also implement these guide-lines that follow:
1. Research your topic, your niche, your audience's hot buttons and
decide about the best service or product for your prospects. Find out also
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which is the most convenient auto-responder service to use for the
purpose.
2. Decide to make a website, from which to offer your freebies to your
would be subscribers in a web-form that you get provided from the autoresponder of your choice.
3. Notice what emails fail to be opened and make a provision in your
auto-responder to repeat the delivery to that segment of subscribers.
Don't even think about the reasons why the messages have not been
opened; just email them again the message, although checking the
spelling of their name and email address ought to help in avoiding this
issue.
4. Make sure that you are sending the service your audience wants
otherwise you are not targeting their needs, and what you are offering,
will cause you to lose money still.
5. Consider using the know-how of other experience marketers with their
own lists. Be friends with them and learn the way they build their lists.
This is an invaluable experience that will help you building a better solid
list of members participating in your niche.
6. To reduce auto-responder costs, always keep an eye on the unsubscribers or else you will pay the first upgrade to the new coststructure of your list, a lot sooner.
7. Keep in mind that building a list requires time and effort, so don't think
you are going to get results overnight and instead concentrate on getting
happy prospects and willing buyers with the passing of time.
Be conscious that list building is one of the best marketing practices that
you can be involved with, because if you do it right, it can pay you untold
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dividends. Remember that having a happy list of subscribers is
potentially gold striking for your business.”
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Glossary Definitions
Above-the-fold The part of a web page
that is visible without scrolling. It is
generally more desirable placement on a
Website because of its visibility. If you
have a "join our mailing list" tag on your
Website, you should place it "above the
fold" making it easy for visitors to opt-in.
Affirmative Consent Another word for permission. The recipient of your
email has been clearly and fully notified of the collection and use of his
email address and has consented prior to such collection and use.
Affirmative consent is not only a best practice; it is required by all
reputable email marketing services.
Auto Responder A program or a script that automatically sends a
response when someone sends a message to its address. The most
common uses of auto responders are for subscribe and unsubscribe
confirmations, welcome emails and customer-support questions.
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 Federal anti-spam legislation passed in 2003
that requires the following in each email: a legitimate header, a valid
"From" address, a straightforward "Subject" line, an unsubscribe/opt-out
link and/or instructions and a physical address. It also requires that all
unsubscribes are processed within ten days of receipt.
Campaign An email marketing message or a series of messages
designed to accomplish an overall goal.
Challenge Response An automated message triggered by the receipt of
an email for the purpose of identifying the sender as a trusted source.
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The challenge is a message to the sender of the email with instructions
on how to validate themselves. If the sender provides a valid response,
his email address is added to the recipient's list of trusted senders and
his message is passed along to the recipient.
Click-through Rate (CTR) The percentage (the number of unique clicks
divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a
given URL in your e-mail.
Confirmed Opt-In A more stringent method of obtaining permission to
send email campaigns. Confirmed opt-in adds an additional step to the
opt-in process. It requires the subscriber to respond to a confirmation
email, either by clicking on a confirmation link, or by replying to the email
to confirm their subscription. Only those subscribers who take this
additional step are added to your list.
Conversion Rate The number or percentage of recipients who respond
to your call-to-action in a given e-mail marketing campaign or promotion.
This is the measure of your e-mail campaign's success. You may
measure conversion in sales, phone calls, appointments etc.
Cost per Thousand (CPM) In e-mail marketing, CPM commonly refers
to the cost per 1000 names on a given rental list.
E-zine An ezine is an electronic magazine emailed to a list of
subscribers. Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both
depending on the publication) inserted into the body of the email. Buying
ad space in an e-zine or email newsletter, or sponsoring a specific article
or series of articles allow advertisers to reach a targeted audience driving
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traffic to a website, store or office, signups to a newsletter or sales of a
product or service.
Email Blocking Email blocking typically refers to blocking by ISPs. Emails that are blocked are not processed through the ISP and are
essentially prevented from reaching their addressed destination. ISPs
actively block email coming from suspected spammers.
Email Newsletter Ads or Sponsorships Buying ad space in an email
newsletter or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles.
Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both depending on the
publication) inserted into the body of the email.
False Positive Legitimate permission-based email that is erroneously
blocked due to the limitations of current email blocking and filtering
techniques. False positives are an industry wide problem. Currently,
seventeen per cent of permission-based email is erroneously blocked.
HTML E-mail An e-mail that is formatted using Hypertext Markup
Language instead of plain text. HTML makes it possible to include
unique fonts, graphics and background colors. HTML makes an e-mail
more interesting and when used properly can generate higher response
rates than plain text.
Hard Bounce/Soft Bounce A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason like a non-existent address. A soft
bounce is the failed delivery of an e-mail due to a temporary issue, like a
full mailbox or an unavailable server.
House List (or Retention List) A permission-based list that you built
yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a
relationship with customers over time. Your house list is one of your most
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valuable assets because it is 7 times less expensive to market to an
existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Use every opportunity
to add to it and use it.
Landing Page A web page that is linked to an email for the purpose of
providing additional information directly related to products or services
promoted in the email.
Links Text links, hyperlinks, graphics or images that, when clicked or
when pasted into a browser, send the prospect to another online location
(e.g. a landing page or other pages of a website). Links in emails are a
call-to-action.
Open Rate The percentage of e-mails opened in any given e-mail
marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.
Opt-in (or Subscribe) To opt-in or subscribe to an e-mail list is to
choose to receive e-mail communications by supplying your e-mail
address to a particular company, website or individual thereby giving
them permission to e-mail you. The subscriber can often indicate areas
of personal interest (e.g. mountain biking) and/or indicate what types of
e-mails she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. newsletters).
Opt-out (or Unsubscribe) To opt-out or unsubscribe from an e-mail list
is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by
requesting the removal of your e-mail address from their list.
Permission-Based E-mail E-mail sent to recipients who have opted-in
or subscribed to receive e-mail communications from a particular
company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite
for legitimate and profitable e-mail marketing.
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Phishing (pronounced "fishing") Refers to email scams whose
purpose is identity theft. Identity thieves send fraudulent email messages
with return addresses, links, and branding that appear to come from
credit card companies, banks and some of the Web's most well known
sites including eBay®, PayPal®, MSN®, Yahoo®, and AOL®. These
messages are designed to "phish" for personal and financial information
(e.g. passwords, usernames, social security numbers, credit card
numbers, mother's maiden name, etc.) from the recipient. For examples,
see www.anti-phishing.org.
Preexisting Business Relationship The recipient of your email has
made a purchase, requested information, responded to a questionnaire
or a survey, or had offline contact with you.
Important note: Federal law recognizes your right to send email to
people with whom you have a preexisting business relationship provided
that you include a working unsubscribe link or instructions, however, be
aware of the difference between your legal rights and best practices.
Blasting off an email campaign to all of your past customers will likely
engender bad will and get you a high complaint, or abuse, rate. First,
forget about the customers who are more than one year old if you
haven't emailed them before. To your remaining list, you may want to
send a permission letter that reminds customers of their relationship with
you. Then, encourage them to unsubscribe if they do not want to receive
your future mailings. Your permission letter reassures your customers
that you care about their permission, minimizes complaints and starts
you off with a cleaner list.
Privacy Policy A clear description of a website or company's policy on
the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what
they do, and do not do, with the data. Your privacy policy builds trust
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especially among those who opt-in to receive e-mail from you or those
who register on your site. If subscribers, prospects and customers know
their information is safe with you, they will likely share more information
with you making your relationship that much more valuable.
Rental List (or Acquisition list) A list of prospects or a targeted group
of recipients who have opt-in to receive information about certain
subjects. Using permission-based rental lists, marketers can send e-mail
messages to audiences targeted by interest category, profession,
demographic information and more.
Segmentation Dividing your email list based on interest categories,
purchasing behavior, demographics and more for the purpose of
targeting specific email campaigns to the audience most likely to respond
to your messaging or offer.
Signature File (or sig file for short) A tagline or short block of text at
the end of an e-mail message that identifies the sender and provides
additional information such as company name and contact information.
Single Opt-in (with a subscriber acknowledgement email) The most
widely accepted and routinely used method of obtaining email addresses
and permission. A single opt-in list is created by inviting visitors and
customers to subscribe to your email list. When you use a signup tag on
your website, a message immediately goes out to the subscriber
acknowledging the subscription (this is often accomplished using an
auto-responder). This message should reiterate what the subscriber has
signed up for, and provide an immediate way for the subscriber to edit
her interests or opt-out.
Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail) E-mail sent to
someone who has not opt-in or given permission to the sender. Do you
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get spam? (a rhetorical question, to be sure) Find out how the sender
obtained your e-mail address.
Spoofing The falsification of an email header so that the email appears
to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual
source. Illegitimate marketers use spoofing to disguise their identity in an
attempt to commit fraud and avoid prosecution for sending UCE or spam.
Federal law prohibits spoofing, however, until sender identity can be
established, spammers will continue to escape the law.
Subject Line The short line of type in an email that indicates what the
message is about. Your subject line should be short (30 - 40 characters
including spaces, or 5-8 words), and it should include a specific benefit
that accurately reflects your offer in order to be effective. Federal law
prohibits the use of misleading subject lines.
Suppression List (a.k.a. opt-out list) A list of email addresses whose
owners have asked to be removed from an email list so that they no
longer receive email regarding an advertiser's products or services. A
reputable email marketing service makes this process automatic,
however, if you use multiple email products, or have multiple databases
from which you send emails, you should use a suppression list to
process all unsubscribe requests across all lists.
Targeting Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be
interested in a certain product or service. Targeting is very important for
an e-mail marketer because targeted and relevant e-mail campaigns
yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Your USP is the unique attribute(s)
of your business that makes your company, product or service the best
solution to a problem, the best way to fulfill a need or desire or the best
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The Secrets of Building Lists for Profit
way to achieve a goal. Your USP answers the prospect's question: "Why
should I do business with you instead of someone else?"
Universal Resource Locator (URL) A website, page or any other
document address or location on the Internet. URLs indicate the location
of every file on every computer accessible through the Internet.
Viral Marketing A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a
company's customers. It is often referred to as word-of-mouth
advertising. Email has made this type of marketing very prevalent. Tools
such as "send this page, article or website to a friend" encourage people
to refer or recommend your company product, service or a specific offer
to others.
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