Some marketers assume that, because subscribers have opted in, they will be receptive to endless sales pitches. This is one of the most common email marketing mistakes, but it is also one that will quickly erode your credibility. Turning every email into a product pitch will do nothing but drive your “unsubscribe” rate through the roof. What good is spending hours every day building your email list if you’re losing subscribers as fast as you’re gaining new ones?

So what should you offer subscribers via your email messages? Here are a few ideas that will keep your subscribers loyal, while building both trust and profits:

• Update bulletins. If you’ve written a particularly useful article or blog post, let your subscribers know about it. Some internet marketers even send out a weekly update, highlighting the core concepts of each article posted in the previous week. This is great for people who don’t have time to visit your site every day, and want to find relevant content quickly.
• Newsletters. These emails focus on new developments that will be of direct interest to your subscribers. They can also highlight new product offerings, giving you an opportunity to introduce readers to your products without “pitching” them.
• Links to audio/video podcasts. These simple emails boast impressive click-through rates, and they only take a few minutes to write. Just format your content as an audio or video download, and alert your email subscribers. Visitors can download and listen to podcasts at their leisure, so they’re a great tool for staying in front of your audience, whether they’re parked at their PCs or not.
• “Mastermind” tips. Really, these can be called anything – I’ve just adopted the “mastermind” term from working with professionals like Yaro Starak and John Chow. These are bits of semi-exclusive, in-depth information that go beyond what you offer on your website or blog. Because you don’t provide these informational pearls to the general internet-surfing public, subscribers perceive them as being highly valuable – and they learn to look to you as the authority in your niche market.
• Contests. Sure, it seems a bit dastardly to “bribe” your subscribers into loyalty, but the truth is, if you don’t do it… someone else probably will. Promoting the occasional contest, be it for a free t-shirt, the newest web-enabled gadget, or a complementary product or service, will do wonders for building subscriber loyalty.
• Personal insights. Many internet marketers frown on this tactic, but our clients have found that the occasional foray into personal emails builds the relationship side of internet marketing. While this might not produce immediate results, it lays the foundation for long-term business success.

These are just a few of the strategies you can use to increase loyalty, establish yourself as an authority, and increase your business revenues. Use these ideas as a springboard to launch your own unique email marketing campaign, and you will quickly position yourself ahead of 99% of the other marketers in your niche.

As it turns out, Twitter is also an excellent marketing tool. Businesses ranging from Kansas based iThemes to large corporations like Ford and Morningstar Farms are using Twitter to engage potential customers, build brand loyalty, and increase their demographic reach.

What can you really say in 140 characters?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Savvy business owners know that the way to grow a business today is by engaging customers. Gone are the days when companies could simply rely on talking “at” a customer, rather than “to” him or her. That approach still works to a degree, but it is no longer sufficient for sustained growth and continued business viability.

There are several reasons for this:

• Customers are no longer forced to sit through television advertisements, thanks to the power of digital video recording (DVR). With the push of a button, television viewers can skip through commercial segments, stripping you of the power to reach them… no matter how much money you’ve spent or how clever your ads are.
• Customers today have greater access to information than ever. For example, I recently saw an infomercial for  a new exercise video series. A decade ago, I would been forced to make my purchase decision based on the (rather biased) information presented in the commercial. Today, I just picked up the laptop and began looking for feedback and reviews about the product.
• The sheer array of consumer choices available, both online and offline, means that you’re probably not the only game in town. The companies that work the hardest to engage customers and encourage brand loyalty are the ones that prosper.

Twitter gives you a unique opportunity to approach your customers as people, rather than simply as revenue sources. It also gives you the chance to show the human side of your company, which will do more for attracting and retaining customers than any slick advertising campaign ever could.

For more information about Twitter, including tips for maximizing your use of this powerful media tool, visit my Twitter  Tips post on Blogger’s Workshop.

Lee

Twitter: @JJMbuzz

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The vast majority of marketing articles just end up taking up virtual space, with no real business building power behind them. That’s because most article marketers don’t develop solid strategies before they start posting to article directories. Without a strategic approach, you can end up wasting valuable hours that you could be spending on other, more effective tasks.

Here are five strategies that will help you get the most out of your article marketing efforts:

1. Effective keyword research. Don’t assume that, just because you post an article to EzineArticles or another directory, your content will be read. Proper keyword research is essential for driving readers to your articles - after all, the majority of your article readers will come from search engine listings, not from the directories. A paid service like Wordtracker will help you identify the keywords in your niche that people are searching for.
2. Developing useful content. Many marketers look at articles as “throw-aways” because they don’t actually add a website or blog’s content… so they put less effort into putting useful, relevant information into their marketing articles. It’s important to understand, though, that these articles will be the first impression of you for many customers… and if your articles don’t enrich their lives, they won’t be likely to click through to your site.
3. Make sure your articles are well written. If you’re writing them yourself, revise them until they’re perfect. If you’re hiring a copywriter, make sure you choose one that not only understands article marketing, but also possesses superior writing skills. It’s well worth paying a bit more for a great copywriter – your articles will retain reader interest and drive more traffic to your site.
4. Keep it conversational. Your marketing articles are opportunities to teach others, but they’re also opportunities for readers to get to know, like, and trust you. Don’t write just to show how much you know… instead, write for the purpose of developing relationships.
5. Develop a compelling resource box. Even if a reader benefits from an article, he or she still needs a reason to click through to your site.  Let your readers know exactly what the payoff is, and your clickthrough rate will increase dramatically.

Lee

Twitter: @JJMbuzz

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But does your content really speak to your audience?

Let’s forget about SEO for a minute. Your visitors don’t really care how well you’ve optimized your content for search engine spiders. What they care about is getting what they came for – useful content they can use to improve some aspect of their lives.

But your site content also has to be engaging. That means that you have to speak on your audience’s level. You should take into account certain factors, including:

• Age
• Gender
• Geographic region
• Education level
• Financial level
• Life experience
• Interests

If your content misses the mark on any of these factors, your website or blog is not going to perform as well as it could.

To some degree, it is possible to reverse engineer your sales process to determine who your target audience is. Let’s say you’re running a site that offers blogging templates through an affiliate program. Who is most likely to want a blogging template?

• Age: This product could appeal to anyone from about 20 to 55, but the target audience for this skews a bit young, probably in the 25 to 35 range.
• Gender: Both, although males are more likely to want a good blogging template for the purpose of making money online.
• Geographic region: Since bloggers come from all over the world, it would be a good idea not to post content specific to a particular geographic region.
• Education level: Most bloggers who would bother buying a template are college educated.
• Financial level: Moderate income, say $30,000 – $60,000. Above that, quite a few people would rather pay a programmer to create a custom blog design.
• Life experience: The target audience is web savvy, and has at least a vague idea of how to use blogging to communicate about their interests. 
• Interests: Online business weighs in heavily here. Not too many personal bloggers (the online diary type) are going to bother purchasing a premium template. Quite a few members of your target audience will either be interested in making money from blogging, or using their blogs to promote another website.

Great. So if you’re promoting a blogging template, your content should be written to target young, educated people who are web savvy and interested in using a blog for business or financial gain.

If you hire a copywriter to produce content for your site, it’s critical to make sure that he or she knows who your target audience is. If you haven’t taken the time to figure this out, or don’t communicate this to your copywriter, you’re effectively wasting your money.