In this article I'm going to talk strictly from a subscriber's point of view. If you're marketing online, what would you do to find out how people think so you can target your e-mail promotions or a newsletter better?Well, here's your opportunity.
Even though I'm running my own newsletter or a bulletin (what I call it) and have my own subscribers, I'm also subscribing to a number of newsletters myself. TSM Bulletin is located at http://tsmbulletin.ogdteam.com.
Today, I'm going to reveal why I open some newsletter e-mails or e-mail promotions more than others. And also, why I always look forward to only a few of them. Yes, only a few.
The reason I'm subscribing to newsletters, ezines or what ever you want to call them, is because that's only way to learn from a marketer and find out what they're up to, without having to buy all of their products. Clever, I must say.
Why are you subscribing to newsletters? To learn or .....???
But somehow, some of them have convinced me to buy some of their products even though I wasn't planning on doing so. But how did they do it?
Let's begin journey.
At this very moment as I'm typing this article, I looked into inbox and bulk folder in 3 of my domain name e-mails that I receive newsletters in. I had a total of 2037 unread e-mails.
WOW! I didn't even know I had that many.
How do I know that these are all newsletters? Because I delete all spam and I open personal e-mails immediately.
And newsletters?
When I get a chance, if at all. That's because I receive quite a few e-mails in one day and I don't have any more time than anyone else. Only 24 hours in a day.
I'm subscribing to top name guru's newsletters, ezines, many marketers and names that I haven't even heard of. It doesn't really matter who is sending e-mail, it's a same story.
One may ask, why am I subscribed to so many of them?
Well, you never know what you may learn from any one of them.
OK! Here we go! The time for confession.
When I subscribe to a new list, I get usual welcome e-mail. That's standard. But then, I wait for first, second and possibly third e-mail from marketer.
By then, I pretty much know nature of his or her e-mails. Whether e-mails are direct broadcasts or pre-scheduled e-mails from their autoresponders, it really doesn't matter.
In my daily course of scanning my e-mail accounts, there are e-mails that I open immediately and there are e-mails that I just transfer to folders to open at a later date, if ever.
The e-mails that I already know contain a pure sales pitch or a promotion of some kind with included affiliate link, end up getting deleted or transferred to folders and maybe never opened.
I pretty much know which marketers send me these types of e-mails all time.
Maybe not all of subscribers act this way, but there are e-mails that I actually open, read and then transfer to folders.
And those are e-mails that contain a free content. Content such as articles, movie files, newsletters that deliver a free content instead of a pure sales pitch and such. Again, I pretty much know what marketers send me these types of e-mails.
Let's be brutally honest.
What do surfers do when they search 'net? Do they search Internet with their credit cards ready to buy or do they search for a free content?
When you open your e-mail, do you have your credit card ready to buy whatever promotions you might get hit by, or ... why do you open your e-mails?
As marketers, we always want to sell, sell, sell. As surfers, people want to read without having to spend their hard earned money.
Let's apply same strategy again. Why do I open personal e-mails immediately - e-mails from customers, business associates, friends, purchase receipts and such?
Or better yet, why do YOU open e-mails sent to you from a friend or someone you know?
Because you know for sure that it doesn't contain any sales pitch or a promotion.
And what about e-mail promotions? What do those e-mails contain?