How important is personalization in email marketing?

Opt In Email ListThe average person receives such a multitude of marketing?messages every day that your message has to stand out from the crowd if it is
to have even the slightest chance of being read. ?Personalization is a great way to achieve?this.

A good Email Marketing platform will make this easy for?you.? You should be able to address the?email to each recipient in just a couple of click of the mouse.? A ?Dear Peter? email is bound to be better?received than an impersonal ?Dear Sir?.? Perhaps?including more personal data, like their location etc., could also serve to?boost their confidence in your brand.? As?time passes and you build your database you can incorporate clients? lifestyle,?professional and perhaps even personal history into your messages.? At which point the reader will not even?notice to start with that they are reading a bulk email, and if the content is?of interest to them, by the time they do?realize, they will continue reading?anyway.

Data segmentation

The best email marketing services will allow you to easily?create dynamic content in just a few simple steps.? Imagine you have a clothes store and wish to?send out a campaign with your newest lines.?Data segmentation will allow different readers to receive different?content.? Perhaps the younger ladies?would be interested in the new party dresses while the more mature man would?certainly not be.? Instead of sending the?entire line to every one of your subscribers, each person can receive content?that they may be interested in, based on their age, location, past purchases?and any other data that you have gained from them as subscribers.

Personal email = Sales

By sending this more personalized information out to your?clients, it is if you are showing an interest in them personally.? They will receive an email which includes?their name and products they are genuinely interested in, rather than generic?copy.? This kind of service can only help?to improve their loyalty to your brand and so ensure future sales and possibly?up sells?and cross sells as well.

Personalized email marketing is basically the opposite of?spam, rather than unsolicited messages which the consumer never requested.? They receive genuine content, which they have?asked to receive which is tailored to them.?As well as being less likely to end up in the spam folder, these?messages are also three times more likely to be opened than a generic marketing?message.

Author bio: Stuart Wooster writes on behalf of email marketing company Brother?Mailer, and enjoys writing about digital marketing topics.

List Building Tips for Affiliate Marketers

Building Your Email List

If you want?to be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to build up a good mailing?list. If you don?t have an email list, then you are throwing away money.? A mailing list offers you an easy way to stay?in touch with interested customers and potential customers, keeping them?informed about your products and increasing the chances of them coming back to?your site to make a purchase.

If you don?t?have a list, it?s much harder to bring visitors back to your site, and you will?be forced to rely on other (potentially expensive) forms of marketing just to?keep your traffic at its current level, let alone bring in new visitors.? Fortunately, modern list management tools?make it easy to stay in touch with your customers.

The Basics of List Building

To build your?mailing list, all you need is a good autoresponder service. Popular third party?services include Fluttermail, GetResponse and Aweber.? If you have the technical skills to run your?own list, you could try Infinite Responder, an open source mailing application
that has a lot of useful features including scheduled mailing, newsletter style?mail bursts, and easy to configure bounce handling.

Once you?ve?decided what you want to use to send your email messages, you need to get?people to sign up to your list.? If you?simply add an opt-in form to your website, you might get a couple of signups,?but it will take a long time for your list to get big enough for you to?effectively monetize it.? Consider?running a competition, or offering a free ebook download as an incentive to get?people to join your list.

The Importance of Opt-In

It is vital that you require people to opt in to your list.?Do not add people to your list without obtaining their consent first of
all.? Sending unsolicited emails is against the law in many parts of the world, and even in areas where the law?permits the sending of unsolicited emails, you could be breaching the terms of?service of your hosting agreement.? Do you really want to risk losing your domain name and hosting because you wanted?to cheat and make your mailing list subscriber figures look better?

By using an opt-in mailing list, and making it easy for people to opt out or suspend their?subscription if they are going on holiday for a while, you keep your customers?happy, and promote your business as an honest and reputable one.

Opt In Email List

What to Do With Your List

Once you have a list, you need to make it work for you.?Send out regular emails (but don?t overload people?s inboxes by sending
multiple mails per day!), with useful tips, interesting articles, and perhaps?even the occasional freebie or money off voucher.

Don?t make every email a sales pitch.? Give out free?information, and make at least half of your emails entertaining or informative.? When you want to promote a product, start by adding some gentle pre-sells to your regular newsletter, and then send out a hard sell email. The pre-sells should have got your subscribers thinking about your product, and they?ll be more receptive to your final sales
pitch.

Be consistent with your newsletter. If you think you?ll struggle to write a newsletter every?week, spend a day or two preparing a large batch of emails, and schedule them?so that you don?t have to worry about doing any more writing for a few months.

Once you have a good list of subscribers prepared, you?ll wonder how your site survived in?your pre-list days!?

This guest post was written by the team at Twist Digital ? please?visit their affiliate directory??or join in the discussions at?the affiliate forum?.?

Monetizeit

Monetize IT Sign Up Today!

Founded in 2001, MediaWhiz has grown steadily to become a leader in the online advertising space. MediaWhiz provides its clients with five results driven marketing services: Lead Generation, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Display Advertising, and Search Marketing services. As you can see MediaWhiz is a veteran company in the industry with direct ties into several different fields within affiliate marketing which is clearly an advantage over smaller and newer networks. They are a one-stop shop for performance marketing.

Monetizeit is their fast growing affiliate network with unique and exclusive deals, meet your needs payments, an experienced affiliate management staff, unsurpassed customer support, and a proprietary tracking system. There are 400 live offers such as e-mail and zip code submits, credit and debt, health and beauty, dating and education, finance and payday loans.

My affiliate manager at Monetizeit, Nicole, has provided me with incomparable personal attention and advice. The Affiliate Management staff collaborates weekly to keep its publishers up to date on the hottest offers on and coming to the market, creative?s and industry buzz. They also work closely with their email marketing team to provide me with tips and ideas so that as a publisher I am never ?the guinea pig? they are telling me what they know already works. ?The key to being successful in this industry is the ability to think outside of the box and that?s just one of the things that the MediaWhiz/Monetizeit team has over the competition. With all of their other strengths I know they will continue to prosper.

eComXpo 2009

eComXpo 2009

That's right everyone eComXpo is here great xpo to share info meet some cool people in the affiliate advertising world. So last year I won a prize from Rextopia $100 cant beat that just for going to an online xpo.To all my readers highly recommend you check it out!

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