Article Surfing Archive

You owe an online business and you know that to make money you need a list of people, a list of passionate buyers who are hungry for your offer and will devour it when you send it out.

How do you create such a list? And even more important how do you maintain your list of prospects? It's not as easy as you probably thought at first. You must have a squeeze page where people opt in to your list. On that page you should tell your prospects that the information they provide will be kept private and that they will receive only the newsletters they subscribe to but not a whole lot of spam from different sources.

Don't forget to use the double opt in model because people may not remember that they opted in to your list. Using the double opt-in method you ensure that all people on your list gave you the permission to send them your emails. Your auto-responder email messages should be mini sales letters including a solid content to keep your list subscribed. And finally, you want to send the emails at a regular basis, but not too often, so your subscribers don't forget who you are, or worse, get overwhelmed by your messages.

It requires much time, testing and measuring to choose the right email marketing strategy and set it up in the right way but it is well worth the efforts in the end.

Let's talk now about 3 simple but incredibly important rules to set you on the right path with the email newsletter:

1. Keep the lines width up to 65 characters.

Most people read many emails every day. So, your purpose is to compose your email message so that it is not boring or fatiguing to read. The last thing that your recipient wants to do is scrolling his eyes from one side of the screen to the other. No matter how good your content is, if it is fatiguing to read, it risks to be abandoned after a few lines.

The optimum width of the line is around 65 characters.

You just type 65 symbols, for example asterisks or dashes, across the top and then measure your text returns against this. MS Outlook Express, NoteTab and some other email programs allow you set the line wrap to any character width you require. So, you don't have to hit enter every time you think you need to.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some email programs force line wrapping at 60 to 65 characters on emails received. So if you send an email wrapped at 100 characters your reader will receive an email that is broken down. This makes it look unprofessional.

2. Don't write in ALL CAPS.

It's bad email etiquette. It's like you're shouting at your reader. Nobody likes to be shouted at and if you are trying to sell something at the same time, you won't make any sales, and even worse, you may lose some subscribers.

Some caps, underlining and bolding is necessary but don't abuse it! Too many caps, exclamation points, underlining and bolding work against you. An email all in caps would destroy the reader's confidence very quickly.

3. Check your spelling and grammar.

Have you ever seen a website, sales page or email with spelling mistakes? What do you think about the professionalism of the owner or email sender?

Some people may not pay attention to the mistakes, but for some people one spelling mistake will completely destroy the credibility of the message.

It is very important to spell check your messages before sending them. And even better if you have someone else to proof read your message before you send it out. A fresh look always helps discover the slips and mistakes that you might miss. Your reputation and sales are in direct proportion with your messages. The better your message is, the higher the credibility of your readers is and, thus, more sales you make. So, take the time to get it absolutely right.