Somebody recently asked me for tips on how to sell more stuff using a newsletter. The guy was complaining the conversion rate of his special offers distributed via a newsletter was below 1%. I told him to stop selling and start entertaining. Hysterical laughter followed. Ok, never mind. For those who would like to take a couple of direct marketing tips on board, let’s fire away:
- Provide your readers with a sensation or a killer bit of news;
- Make them work for you. When you issue a report or an e-book, scatter some affiliate links around and have your web-address, email address and phone number on EACH page of your e-book/report - footer works better. The web-address should be http://blahblahblah because many people print e-books and once it is on paper, “click here” doesn’t work any more. Did you know that around 90% of e-books eventually end up on Emule and other P2P networks? Those things are spreading both online and in print that’s why it is important to have a web address and phone number on each page!
- Your newsletter’s ONLY goal is to entertain. Forget about selling if you want to sell!
- Do a digest. Direct marketing is great for keeping in touch with your subscribers. Pick up interesting, funny, scary, wacky, relevant and remotely (ir)relevant stuff you feel your readers would be interested in and link to it. By providing diverse links for your list, your readers will soon understand that you’re not trying to squeeze any possible amount of money out of them.
- Start selling your own products and give your readers a special time-sensitive discount or preferably a coupon code.
- Never send out stand-alone special promotions to your readers - it is one of the biggest mistakes of direct marketing. Schedule a monthly or whatever newsletter and stick to your schedule. Include all your or 3rd party offers into the newsletter. Regularity helps!
Speaking about special promotions via newsletters, there is this blogger-guy in Australia. He is clever, he knows stuff, I respect him and have learned something from his story BUT… I unsubscribed from his list after just 2 weeks. All I got from him was those third party offers (nice sales copy written by himself though): “There’s this guru and there’s that guru, buy from him, buy from him!” No way, man!
So, to sum it all up. A good newsletter that is also a cunning seller consists of (the sequence matters):
- Sensation
- Digest (with non-affiliate links)
- Tips (be an expert and share your expertise)
- Your offer, 3rd party offer, voucher
- Preview of the next newsletter (saying “don’t miss the next list issue, I will tell you about this, this and that”)
My approach has always been to create addiction. Readers were waiting for the next newsletter and surely many of them bought the products. The conversion rate was of course much higher than the standard 2%.
What is your experience with making money from your newsletter or mailing-list? Please add your comments below.
I run a mailing list that contains around 3,200 subscribers and growing. I usually send out a newsletter every 2 weeks or so and so far i’ve seen some good results. Been doing it for almost 6 months now. If done properly it can get you good results.
Thank you for your comment. So, how would you regard your newsletter. Is it more of entertainment or more of sales?
Really great post, thank you.
You are absolutely right, the main target of your mailing list is not to sell, it is to make your clients love the product and believe in what you sell, so then they would click your link and purchase what you ask for.
Hey,
Well, i also run a newsletter however it’s a little bigger. It contains around 5000 members and I send it out every week. I am getting around 4000 visitors / week from running the newsletter.