Generating traffic to your Web site is the first step towards building a successful online business or establishing yourself as a thought leader to boost your career. Without traffic, you won’t have customers or clients – it’s that simple. But, since new visitors to your Web site may not buy on the first visit, you need to find a way to get them to come back again.
There are two obvious methods for securing such return visits: You can “pay” for return visits by continuing to advertise to the same market. Or, you could collect email addresses from your visitors and use an email marketing tool like SignMark Hosting’s “Express Email Marketing” tool to reach out to visitors on a regular basis.
The latter is most certainly the least costly option. And if you take full advantage of your email marketing, this option will also prove the most effective.
By now you’re wondering how to get those visitors’ email addresses? The easiest way it to create a monthly (or weekly) newsletter and add a subscription box on your custom home page.
What? not enough knowledge about creating a newsletter? You don’t have enough time? Come on get all of your objections out now: I don’t have anything to say in a newsletter; I don’t have anyone to send it to because I don’t have a list; I hate writing; I don’t have time to write a newsletter every month….
All finished? Not to worry; Dr. Ande is here with the answers to all those questions and more.
Fake It Till You Make It
Sorry I couldn’t resist this handy little colloquialism. If you’re in the entertainment business you’ve heard this many times. It’s true. It doesn’t matter if you have any subscribers; just write your newsletter as though you’re sending it out to 1000’s of recipients. If you need feedback and encouragement, get your friends to subscribe. Use the feedback from your first newsletters to improve it as you grow.
Just make sure your message is carefully crafted and the offers enticing enough to appeal to a broad customer base. You never know when one of your subscribers is going to forward the newsletter to a friend. And the more appealing the newsletter, the more likely your recipients are to share it with friends, family, coworkers, etc.
Remember fake it till you make it. Act like you’ve got a list of a million and one day you just might. The important thing to remember is that you’re using your newsletter to build your list. Don’t wait until you have a list to build your newsletter.
Getting Visitors to Subscribe
Okay so now you’ve decided to create a newsletter. That’s the hardest part believe it or not. Once you’ve made the decision to do something the rest, albeit tedious, is a piece of cake.
Now you need to convince your visitors/customers to subscribe to it. One way of doing this is to combine a newsletter subscription with a discount promotion. For example offer the discount as a bonus for subscribing – e.g., “Subscribe to my free newsletter and get 5% off!” You can then add the promo code to the Web page subscribers see AFTER they have confirmed their subscription. If you’re using SignMark Hosting’s “Express Email Marketing,” you’ll find this page by clicking Opt-In Magnet. It’s the last step in Build Sign-Up Form called the Subscription Confirmation Message.
If you have a clear idea of what you intend to put in your newsletter, you can place a “teaser” segment next to the subscription box, thus allowing potential subscribers to get a gist of what they can expect from your mailings.
Be sure to put your “subscribe” block in a prominent place on your home page. Alternatively (or additionally), you can use a “hover ad”. A hover ad displays on your home page when the page loads, and then disappears after a few seconds.
You can create a hover ad using a free tool at: http://www.tamingthebeast.net/generators/popup-hover-ad.htm. Also, hover ads are not blocked by pop-up blockers so your visitors are sure to see it.
Note: some Internet users are annoyed by any kind of pop-up/hovering content on the pages they visit. Use this carefully.
Your Newsletter Content
So you’ve made the decision to create a newsletter. You’ve also decided how to get potential subscriber’s attention. Now you’re trying to figure out what to write about. Don’t panic – you’re not writing to win a Pulitzer. You simply need to offer some interesting reading for your subscribers and a special offer to attract them to your storefront.
- The content of your newsletter should be relevant to your niche market. A good example: write a short piece on how one of your products can be used in your niche, preferably a product you have on sale that month.
- Write another article that is strictly informational and relevant to your niche – no sales pitch. Include a few links to other interesting articles or news stories you’ve found on the Web. (This shows your credibility and makes you look like you’re just passing on information and not like you’re a used car salesman)
- Write a case study of one of your customers: What they do, how they use your products and link to their Web site.
- Include a short article about a new feature that’s available for a particular product, or describe a new product that you’ve added to your storefront.
The key to writing articles that your visitors will read is keeping the sales pitch soft and giving them interesting information. As you compose more and more articles for your newsletters, you’ll gradually learn to get the balance right between useful information and subtle, yet effective product marketing.
Obviously, you want to link any offers and products you mention in your newsletter to your storefront pages, with a source code, but you can link informational articles to your site, as well. For example: Display the first few sentences of the article (or a quick overview of its main points) in the newsletter and add a Read More link that takes the readers to your custom site. This will help direct the newsletter recipients to your site, which is where you want them.
Remember people don’t have time to read pages and pages of copy, so keep you content to 1500 words or less. In other words: Keep your message simple, appealing, and to the point.
Newsletter’s Purpose
Still think you don’t have time to write a newsletter? Guess What! In today’s economy, you don’t have time NOT to! Look at all the ways you can use your newsletter articles to grow your business:
- Archive past editions of your newsletter on your website. (This gives your site more unique content for search engines to spider and index.)
- Use the informational articles in your blog.
- Submit the articles to free content sites.
- Compile the list of articles to create a free e-book to give away on your site.
- Create a “Resources” page on your website and list each article.
- Create RSS feeds of your articles
- Use the articles to create and publish a podcast.
- Create a special “how-to” section on your website that tells user exactly how and why they should be using your products.
What you’re still not comfortable creating your own newsletter? Okay if you’re still not comfortable putting fingers to keys there are tons of free content websites that furnishes articles. You can use those articles in your newsletter and on your website.
Remember give credit to the author and follow the publishing rules of the site you take the articles from.
Now no more excuses – start your own monthly newsletter and watch your business grow!
Good Luck & Good Marketing
Dr. Ande
Step Up 2 Success
Step Up 2 Success 
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