How To Suck The Life Out Of Your E-mail List

Apple’s iPhone4 marketing campaign succeeded wildly when former CEO Steve Jobs personally responded to customers via e-mail. Apple was able to make a huge splash with that marketing move, which undoubtedly increased their sales. It’s no surprise, however, that huge companies such as Apple use e-mail lists to further propel their products forward – email lists can be extremely powerful tools when used correctly. However, when used incorrectly, they can be useless – even harmful. So are you taking advantage of your list? Or are you sucking the life out of it like a vampire? Unfortunately for you, vampires are not immortal in the world of Internet marketing – quite the opposite, actually. Here are some missteps you can avoid so that you can harness the full power of your e-mail list.

1. You Sold Out

Rather than taking the time to build up your e-mail list organically, you thought it would be a better idea to buy a list instead. But here’s the problem: not only do you not have permission from those people to contact them, but you also can’t fully know what their interests are either. In short, buying e-mail lists is a bad idea and a waste of money – kind of like buying a bunch of vampire costumes, just because they are on sale after Halloween (you might as well do this though if you bought your e-mail list).

You will never be able to launch and sustain a successful e-mail marketing campaign if you don’t know specifics about the people you are trying to connect with. What is their age group? Where do they live? What is their interest level in your product or service? You’d be able to much more easily answer these vital questions if you took the time to build your e-mail list naturally – this type of information can’t be bought.

2. You Use Your Personal E-mail Address

What’s wrong with using your Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account? Well, the main issue here is that using any of those personal e-mails automatically makes you look like a rookie. In other words, sending e-mails from your personal account is unprofessional, and that is a hard label to shake.

If you run your own business, take the time to set up a company e-mail that uses your domain name. This simple step will convince visitors, competitors and peers that you mean business, and obviously, that’s the type of impression you want to make. For example, which email address seems more professional to you:

• mike1241@hotmail.com
• mike1241@corporatesolutions.com

3. You Are Inconsistent

While it will take some research and practice to determine what the ideal schedule is for sending out e-mails, sending out one per day followed by one per month isn’t a good idea.

Appearing inconsistent is another unprofessional impression that you don’t want to make. Establish a consistent rhythm and monitor how your recipients respond. If you think you could achieve better results with a different schedule, change your routine and monitor the new response rate. Compare both results and learn what works best for you. If you’re having trouble with this, consider using software such as AWeber to help you out.

4. There’s No Call to Action

Why are you e-mailing your potential customers? If you don’t know why or can’t figure out what your call to action is, perhaps you shouldn’t be e-mailing anyone. Each e-mail you send should have a purpose. Try touting your services with a new promotion or letting people know about some exiting new features on your site. (Hey, maybe somebody will buy those old vampire costumes at a discount.)

Basically, sending e-mails that don’t explicitly ask your readers to complete a sale or perform some type of action are lost opportunities. If you aren’t clear about what you want your e-mails to accomplish, your readers won’t be clear about what they’re supposed to do. Make sure your e-mails always have a goal, whether it’s to get potential customers to your homepage or to get them to convert on a sale.

If you are able to sidestep these don’ts and instead research and utilize some e-mail marketing best practices, you will be making a smart investment in your business. Stop sucking the life out of your e-mail list – use it enhance your business, not drain it.