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Very few people understand the tremendous value in their list. Very few people get that. They think they do, but they really don’t. They see it primarily as a list of “potential customers”. Your list is so much more than that. It’s an entity of its own. It’s a machine that just needs you to treat it appropriately and set it into motion.
There are many, many ways to make money from a list without sacrificing your integrity or the well-being of your subscribers.
Every Subscriber Counts
You’ve heard the term that the money is in the list. However, many business owners take that to assume that the bigger the list, the more money they’ll make. This may be true, yet what may be more important than having a large opt-in list is using it well.
If you have a list of 1000 names and 10% of them become customers, that’s great – that’s 100 customers. Yet if you have a list of 250 names and 50% of them become customers because you’ve taken extra measures to make sure they’re treated well, then that’s even better. That’s 125 customers and a group of loyal and valued subscribers.
People buy from businesses they like and people they can relate to. They also buy when they feel appreciated, part of a group, and when they feel the need to reciprocate. By making each and every subscriber feel important and valued you make the very most of your list, regardless of the size.
Here’s how to make sure every subscriber feels important.
Use your subscriber’s name – In every communication you have with your audience, make sure you personalize the message. Dear subscriber,” is very impersonal and won’t create the same connection as something like “Dear Anne.” There are applications that can personalize your email and autoresponder messages or you can do the coding yourself, or hire someone. The point is, find a way to send personal messages to your subscribers. The little details matter and it begins with getting their name on your communications.
Reward your subscribers – Consider analyzing your list and sending special promotions to those who click through often, make purchases or forward your information to others. Some people subscribe to a list just to get the free information you’re offering. They may give you an email address they don’t access often or they may just send all your communications to their junk mail box.
However, other subscribers will be interested in your information. They’ll click though to read your content, they’ll download materials from your website and they’ll express an interest in your products and services. These subscribers are valuable because they’re on the cusp of making a purchase. Taking great care of these subscribers is important. And designing special offers and promotions for them is a great way to make them feel special.
Connect with them personally – Another way to make your subscribers feel special is to take a break from marketing to them and instead include them in your business. You can ask their opinion, give them the opportunity to contribute to your content by writing guest posts or asking questions. You can offer them contests and sweepstakes and give them first dibs at new products or services.
Finally, always be sure to thank your subscribers. Gratitude is wonderful; it’ll change your life and it will let your subscribers know you’re a businessperson who has their priorities in order.
Email Business Writing Etiquette
As the world becomes more and more hurried, it seems that etiquette falls by the wayside. But keeping the rules of business letter writing alive and applying them to your email communications is a great way to present yourself in the most professional light possible and to make your clients and associates feel respected.
Here are a few tips to write professional and polite email business letters.
The salutation and greeting – Remember when you were in school and learned how to write a letter? The first thing you learned was the salutation – the “Dear so and so.” While “Dear sir,” isn’t likely to be the greeting you use in an email, you do still want to include a salutation. Common salutations, if you are communicating with this person for the first time include:
Dear,
Hello,
Thank you,
Grammar for a salutation will include a comma after the salutation or a period at the end depending on the greeting. For example, “Dear Anne,” or “Thank you, Anne.”
Complete words and phrases - While it’s common to use acronyms or text speak like LOL and TTFN, don’t. This is appropriate for friends and family, not for business associates. Even if you become friends with your customers in general keep the use of acronyms to a minimum and even then use them only after your customer or associate has.
Use spell check and proper punctuation - It takes five seconds to hit the spell check button on your email toolbar. If you have frequent misspellings and poor grammar you’re making an indelible impression on your associate or client that you may not be able to remove. Do your best to put your best foot forward in your email communications. A quick spell check and grammar check just tells your client you take the time to communicate effectively and correctly, you’re a professional and your communication with them is important to you.
Keep it short and to the point – respect the time of your associate. That doesn’t mean you jump right into the meat of your email; a friendly sentence or two to inquire about how the person is doing or to introduce yourself is professional and courteous. However, it’s also important to get to the point of your email as quickly as possible.
The closing - Finally, once you’ve wrapped up what you have to say, it’s time for the good old-fashioned closing. Sincerely is considered a bit too old-fashioned in this day and age, but the following are quite acceptable:
Regards
Best
Best regards
Thank you
When writing an email to a client, prospect, or business associate, it is important to make sure you present yourself in the best light possible. That means spending a little extra time on your communications and following a few simple email etiquette rules.
Key Things You Need For Your Subscribers
Are you Beyond Doing The Above?
Start setting up your autoresponder to be ready to go for the full year. Plunk in 52 messages, one per week.
THE CHALLENGE
Go through the key things and make sure it’s the absolute BEST that it can be. I’m not perfect either, I’m going to go through my own and decide what is best. It’s not a hard challenge.. and I will be giving you ideas the entire month on how to better your email marketing. So let’s get started…
THE CHALLENGE DETAILS
It’s not hard, just a small spark!
Contest starts February 1st, 2010
1) Choose ONE aspect of your email marketing that you’d like to improve. Your messages, fixing your thank you page, creating a new resource for subscribers, etc.
2) Post here in the comments below WHAT you are going to do
3) At the end of the month post a comment on your success!
Oh and feel free to post the Small Spark Button onto your website to spread the word. 
The Monthly Winner Will Receive:
THE WINNER
To win, all you need to do is apply the task and then post a comment to how it actually worked for you. I will then turn each month into a report and checklist for purchase which will include exclusive ideas and my own notes on how I fit it into my business each year.
1) Winner will be announced on February 28th, 2010
2) You must email me at vera @ smallbusinessbranding.com within 3 days to claim your prizes
3) Enjoy your prizes!
Good luck to everyone, I hope you utilize the month of February to implement just one small spark into your business.
Author: Vera Raposo (197 Articles)
Vera Raposo has been an entrepreneur since age 22, owning 5 retail store locations. In 2003, she closed and sold all locations to pursue her online business. Now she's living out an entrepreneurs dream having successfully turned business into a venture that's completely online. You can reach her at vera @ smallbusinessbranding . com.
January 20, 2010
Loving the first challenge! So often we forget the basics of good grammar or politeness in this busy online world.
I’m not competing but will focus on getting 52 autoresponder messages loaded. (YIKES!) Currently I’m just adding week by week and it’s not working for me.
Can’t wait to hear all the other ideas!
January 20, 2010
[...] a work in progress for me. But I’m SO excited because my dear friend Vera Raposo at Small Business Branding has broken down all the components of running a good, profitable business and has turned all this [...]
January 21, 2010
I feel really ashamed to say this but a follow up message never occurred to me. Oh the shame!, I am blasting our website after website but not following up on the inquiries I do have.
I only have a small list of customers inquiring about property, I sent the information to them but then never followed up with a personal message.
My aim for the small spark challenge for February is to send each individual inquiry a follow up message, I can make it personal as my email list is small.
January 21, 2010
BTW Vera. Added your logo to all my sites. Looking forward to this month.
http://turkishpropertysite.com/
January 21, 2010
Very informative, specially the tips section is just awesome I like it very much. I completly agree with the point that every subscriber counts and one should care about each one and better to be in contact with them personally!
January 23, 2010
Christina – That is a really great first goal… how are you going to break that down?
Atinkum – No worries, the good thing is that you’re going to go for it. Follow up messages are easy to add and it’s great that you’re startig with the first one. The cool thing is that it can still feel “personal” even when your subscribers list is large. Also… thanks! for adding the challenge to your sites, I’m really looking forward to see how it helps me also to do the best I can with my email marketing.
SC – Glad you enjoyed the tips, will you join the challenge?
January 25, 2010
Hi Vera. Thank you for this very informative post. I learned a lot and will surely apply them. Consider me part of the challenge.
As I am just starting up with my website, here’s what I plan to do:
- Setup my autoresponder
- Create an opt-in form
- Free gift for signing up with my newsletter
- A Thank You page
- First follow-up message
January 25, 2010
Didn’t really come up with a plan for breaking it down but since you’re holding me accountable…
I’m trying to write one message each morning before delving into client work. I know I’ll need to double that to make 52 in a month but this is my first step.
altinkum – one tip I received about writing to your list is to write as though just one person is reading it. Makes it more personal. I have a small list as well but we all have to start somewhere, right?
January 25, 2010
Jeric – Glad you’re joining into the challenge! If you need any help with what you’re doing feel free to post on this for the duration of this email challenge and I can help you here. Just take it one step at a time, there’s no rush.
Christina – ah yep, that’s what this challenge is about… I’m here to ask questions and get you more committed to getting done what you set forth to do. One each morning is perfect and then maybe plan a Saturday to get the rest done OR you know as well as I do that you can outsource what you don’t get done.
January 26, 2010
[...] Ed Roach on Got A Niche? Scratch It!jonathan on Got A Niche? Scratch It!Vera Raposo on SBB Small Spark Contest 2010: Building Relationships With Subscribers & CustomersEd Roach on Got A Niche? Scratch It!Mike on Got A Niche? Scratch It! Recent [...]
February 12, 2010
Hi guys Just an update on my small spark task.
Just came home from my keynote speech about entrepreneurship. I had it recorded so I can offer it as a free gift to my website subscribers. Will have it edited and cleaned so it’s audible and presentable. Wish me luck!
February 12, 2010
Good luck Jeric. I have not had chance to work on my tasks.One of my sites got hacked and having to start again from the beginning. Feel like crying!
February 12, 2010
@Jeric: awesome giveaway! Get it outsourced right away so you don’t forget about it 
@Altinkum: awful about your hacking problem…I feel your pain!
As for me, I’ve added more messages to my autoresponder but not the 1 per day I was hoping for. I’m going to aim for 2 per day from here til the end of the month.
February 15, 2010
Hi…love your site.
Is the contest still open. I could not find the entry form.
Thanks!
February 15, 2010
Thanks for the support!
@Christina: Thanks for the reminder. Sadly, the recording quality is no good. My voice is barely audible. What I’m doing now is converting my keynote into a special report. So the subscribers can still get the good stuff.
@Altinkum: That is most unfortunate. I always change my username and password into lengthier and more complex ones so hackers would have a hard time figuring it out. Hope this helps
@Kimberly: Hi Kimberly. You just post your comment here on what you plan to do for this month’s contest.
February 15, 2010
Hey everyone!
I just heard from Vera and she’s having a technical difficulty and isn’t able to post here at the moment. She’ll be back as soon as her tech glitch is fixed…hopefully soon!
@Kimberly: You’re welcome to join the contest at any point. Just post a comment here with your plan and what you’ve accomplished for that month’s task
@Jeric: good backup plan with the special report
February 16, 2010
Hey everyone! Thanks Christina for posting for me, my space bar would not work and it turns out there was something inside it. So it’s fixed now thank goodness. Glad to see everyone making progress.
@Jeric: I love that you’ve redirected into something that will be valuable for your readers.
@Kimberly: Looking forward to seeing you join us here.
@Altinkum: Which site was it that got hacked? Maybe we could help you towards taking steps so that it doesn’t happen again. Some sites are more vulnerable than others too.
February 16, 2010
I’m slightly late to the game here but I’d also like to participate in the challenge!
I actually just sent an email out to my list about 30 autoresponder plr messages I bought to customize and add to my email list.
I currently have 7 lists – my main internet business list and then six internet marketing method specific lists. My goal for my six specific lists is to get a minimum of 52 autoresponder messages each, loaded with helpful messages and of course great affiliate recommendations.
I don’t imagine I’ll get anywhere near 312 messages finished by the end of Feb but taking a good chunk out of it in the next couple of weeks would be a step in the right direction.
So my challenge for Feb is to go through all my messages, make sure they are relevant, useful, up to date and filled with appropriate affiliate recommendations.
Since I’m probably going to get an accountability question – I’m going to aim for 10 new messages added per week.
Angela
February 16, 2010
Hi Angela, welcome to the Challenge. You have a great goal ahead and I’m sure you’re going to inspire us as you go. You said you’re adding 10 per week, how many per list?
February 16, 2010
Ok Vera you’re making me think harder. Since I’m late I’m going to have to give myself a bigger challenge. Let’s do 5 per list per week x my six lists. That’s 30 per week, 60 by Feb.28th! Definitely need to be using some good quality PLR to help get that done in time
February 16, 2010
Dang Angela…you’re putting me to shame for not being further ahead on my own autoresponder (and I started earlier…) Guess I know what I’m doing tonight
February 17, 2010
OK what I’m going to do is set up my Outsourcing ecourse and my Affiliate Marketing ecourse. I’ll add the autoresponders for both courses and get the forms added to my site to join them.
I will also email my list more often with great offers and information. I may set up some autoresponders for my primary list but I haven’t decided yet what those would be.
Glennette
February 17, 2010
I want to participate but I’m having a hard time deciding what to do. The mailing list thing overwhelms me big time and although I started out great almost 2 years ago, I let it go. I have a nice size list but am afraid they will all leave once I start sending stuff again LOL No really I’m not worried if they do because it was all my fault for letting it go. BUT I want to change that so that’s why I’m here admitting it to you all.
I do have a sign up forms on my main site and a mailing list page. I also have a blog list that I set up not too long ago through Aweber but totally messed up and it started sending me all my past blog posts. Thankfully it was a new list and only I was on it at the time and Aweber was able to help me stop it quickly. So it’s glitches and techy stuff like that which makes me so nervous to do it.
Anyway, I would like to figure out something small to accomplish before the end of the month. I’ll be back to see if you have suggestions but I think I’ll want to send out a note to both lists ultimately.
Thanks for listening!
February 18, 2010
Hi Vera,
The site was my WordPress site. Thanks for the offer but just paid someone to completely scrap the lot and start again. It was my own fault, Oh the shame!
Anyway, reloading content but might be done in time to carry on with my tasks. My area is real estate and I have just taken a new property on my books so i am thinking a personalised email to each of them. Fingers crossed I can join in.
February 19, 2010
@Angela – You have set yourself a big goal, I love the thinking behind it all. Have you been getting everything in? You’re doing 5 autoresponder messages / list so… if you need to get 30 done each week are you doing 5 per day? Or are you going to do a power session and get 30 done in one go? I personally like the second approach, I put on a podcast that I like and just let my hands and keyboard take over while I’m off in business land.
@Christina – how are you doing? Are you meeting your goals so far?
@Glennette – That’s great news about getting your ecourses posted… how many days in each ecourse do you have? How many messages will you add today? tomorrow? or will you do a power session? What’s your plan?
@Angie – Thanks for joining us! The best thing you can do is just start mailing them, and have your messages come from the heart. Be genuine. Don’t let a fear of getting started hold you back, you have a good list and you can start using it. I think if you’ve been somewhat paralyzed from getting on this, I think a really good goal for you is to just get it over with and email both of them. It doesn’t have to be a huge long-winded email, just something short and sweet works too. Just be true to who you are and your business and it’ll be great!
@Altinkum – Yippie! Kudos to you for just outsourcing it and getting the job done. Why not have someone load your content as well? A great goal for you may be to just start communicating with those 2 new clients. I recently sold my house and our realtor had an autoresponder set up but it was only to log in to see the details of what was happening with my property, I was hoping for more personalized messages. Yet I was thrilled to see him doing at least that because it was truly a step ahead of other realtors. Awesome for you!
Great job everyone! I can’t wait to hear your progress and if you haven’t done so yet, you should click the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” when you submit your comment.
February 19, 2010
I figure I should throw my hat in the ring too and share with you what I am doing this month. I plan to have 1 autoresponder tip for every day of the year. So, looking to have 365 tips added by the end of this month, and yes I have waited this long to decide what to do. Just a small spark right! (ha) This means I have to add 36 messages per day till the end of this month. We`ll see how it goes.
February 19, 2010
I am going to create a free report to give away in exchange for the sign-up. Right now, am offering a report I have give away rights to, but it has someone else’s name on it, and it doesn’t build my brand.
My list is small: I started the site in October of last year, but hopefully this one small step will help me grow my list faster.
Thanks for the push!
February 20, 2010
Good luck to everyone!
The more the many-er
February 21, 2010
Ok, I have just sent 25 personalized emails out. I did as it said above ie used subscribers name, hello, thank you, connected by asking for Feedback. ( The email was introducing all my subscribers to my new site). I tailored each email to what the customer had previously inquired about and had asked if they had been successful etc. Some of my leads were from last year and this is the first follow-up. I know, Shameful!!
I have also put on opt in form on my new site so people don’t have to inquire about a property to receive news.
Next step is to set up Auto responders.
BTW Vera : I see above in your post “Copy to sell your sign up form”. What does this mean?
February 23, 2010
Adriana – So great to have you part of the challenge. How long will your report be? How is it going?
Altinkum – Awesome on the personalized emails! Your clients will be happy with it I’m sure. Copy to sell the form is the words you use to sell your sign up. If you take a look at mine at the top I’m offering “5 outsourcing sheets” free when they sign up. I prompt with a free item and the words I use hopefully gets them to sign up. I’ve recently changed this because I wanted to make it more compelling, we’ll see how it goes.
February 23, 2010
Just an update: I have added up to 269 messages to my autoresponder. My goal was 365 so I am sure I will get there for the end of this month and I only started over the weekend. Just one small spark.
February 24, 2010
Hi Vera. Yea I was planning two batches of 30 but looks like it have to be two batches of 60. Since I put them in html too it takes me a while.
February 28, 2010
I was reading back over this challenge and couldn’t find a deadline date/time for this challenge so I’m not sure if I’m too late!
Just wanted to check and let you know I’ve been working like crazy down to the last minute to get this challenge complete. Here’s what I did:
Affiliate Marketing List – 30 messages
Email Marketing List – 22 messages
Podcasting List – 1 message
Wordpress Website List – 28 messages
Total – 81 messages!
Thanks for the challenge Vera. I really felt great as I set up each new message (sprinkled with affiliate links) as they are going to continue to work for me long after (even years!) this initial work put into them. Of course I’ve still got plenty of work to do but the challenge helped me get a big batch of it completed.
Angela
February 28, 2010
Hello everyone!
@Angela: Great work! I’m sure those messages would help you and your subscribers a lot.
For me, I’ve redirected some of my objectives to other tasks. Here are my updates for the challenge:
- Finished my free gift for subscribers. I initially planned to give a live recording from one of my talks but the audio can’t be heard well. So I turned it into an ebook instead and also recorded it into mp3 for those who want to listen on the go. Both formats will be available for download when they subscribe.
- Completed 8 followup messages in my newsletter. These messages are in the form of a mini-series of life lessons.
What I was not able to accomplish is setting up my autoresponder, which is my goal for this week. I will be doing also the other tasks that comes along with it like the opt-in form and the Thank You page.
Thank you very much for this challenge. This really helped me jump start my site. Thank you also to everyone who supported me. I’m sure this world will be a better place with more people like you.
Cheers!
March 2, 2010
Howdy to all!
@Angela – So glad you enjoyed the challenge and got your messages up and like you said, at least you got a bunch up this month that you may not have made time for. Great job!
@Jeric – How awesome that this helped give you such a great jump start. You did really well this month and now you’ve motivated me to go in and do some recordings too.
For myself, I changed the “gift” for my subscribers BUT it wasn’t for the better. I thought that it may increase my subscribers but it just didn’t. I’m going to leave it up for a bit because oddly I just checked and my subscribers have in fact increased *just* today. So we’ll see what happens. I also got the 269 messages put together, just need to put them into “html” format. I believe I’m going to change from using text now.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who participated! It’s been a really great time and hope you continue on with me onto March’s challenge. I’ll be posting the winner in a new blog post shortly.
Congrats everyone!
Vera Raposo
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