Click to play or right click to save Affiliate ABCs #42

Affiliate ABCs hosts Deborah Carney and Vinny O'Hare are joined by affiliate and affiliate coach James Martell to talk about how affiliates should be using email lists as a large part of their marketing strategy.

Here are notes from this episode:
DIY vs Email marketing services - easier and they cover the legal aspects for you, take care of the optin, subscribing and unsubscribing.

Give something to get sign ups, ebook, access to podcasts, or something not available to the general public. Give them something good or you will lose them.
Example: AffiliateAnswerBook.com

JamesMartell.com
Keep subscribers engaged so they remember why they signed up.

Autoresponder - MartellNewsletter.com - monthly newsletter and subscribers get an ebook and get access to 6 CoffeeTalk podcasts right away, over the next few weeks they get one new and one archive week, then less frequent but covers 4 1/2 years.

Evergreen content that is able to be applied today the same as the day it was recorded or created. Best practices are rarely outdated. Tools may have improved but the information is based on fundamentals won't change.

Expense is deductible as a business expense, cost should not be prohibitive. Stats show that when a newsletter goes out the actions happen and money is made. It gives you an audience to market to. Less reliance on search engine traffic.

Jonathan Diller Elance.com
Stat: 70% of people that visit your site won't return, unless you capture their contact information.

Aweber Email Service - at the time of this recording you can sign up for one month trial for $1, lowest cost package is $19 a month. Costs go up as your list gets bigger, but you are also selling to more people. Cost is not per list, it is per account, your account can have multiple lists.

Blog broadcast capabilities, also to Twitter and Facebook. Use your site as your newsletter. Can be set to go once a week, or every time you post.

Be sure to send people to specific pages that have an action for them to take.

Text vs HTML newsletters: Text works on smartphones and tablets, html won't display right and won't get read. Pretty doesn't always get attention. Graphics are so prominent that they get lost, similar to banner blindness.

Stop words: Free, extra !!!! check with spam services to find the latest lists of "trigger" or "stop" words.

Consider the timing of your newsletters. Vinny sends on Sunday nights, breaking most of the rules.

James has example of Robert Genn who was interviewed on the White Rock Reporter sends his newsletter twice a week at 8:55 on Tuesday and Fridays since 1999. Here is the link to the "Welcome Letter" to his excellent newsletter for artists.

Don't open with inexpensive service then need to change provider once you have built a list.

Just do it. Use a service like elance to hire someone to set up your lists if you need to and get it set up inexpensively. Outsource it instead of putting it off. Have a list for each of your websites.

A couple of podcasts we did with Justin Premick of Aweber are in our archives:
Affiliate ABCs #16 Email Marketing with Aweber Part 1

Affiliate ABCs #17 Email Marketing with Aweber Part 2


Twitter:
James Martell
Vinny O'Hare
Deborah aka Loxly
Affiliate ABCs

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