When I checked in with Facebook this morning I saw that a friend of mine commented on the post (Don’t go looking to see who posted it. I deleted the comment so there wouldn’t be any embarrassment), and here’s what he said:

“Email Marketing is Outdated! Just FYI!”

I couldn’t believe I was actually reading this statement. I actually laughed at the ridiculousness and ignorance of this comment. Was he serious? There was no way he could really think that right? I was a bit more than surprised and had to tell Brian what I just read.

His response to my question, “Can you believe that statement?” was interesting. He said, “Yes I can.”

WHAT!?! I was getting ready for an argument because he knows that email marketing is a highly effective marketing tool for our business, for our clients’ businesses and many of our friends’ businesses.

But then he continued, “I can see that point of view, because if you’re not really using email marketing the right way and you don’t do any marketing to support your email marketing, you aren’t going to see good results and you might say that.”

Here’s the Email Marketing Problem

You see, I think some entrepreneurs and small business owners get sucked in by the often used sales pitch that email marketing is a quick and easy marketing magic pill. They fall in love with the idea that they can simply send an email once a week, or once a month, and then new clients and new qualified prospects will start beating down their door. They get bamboozled by the idea that all they have to do is add an opt-in form or subscribe form in the upper right-hand corner of their website and suddenly people from all over the web will flock to their site and their list will grow and grow and grow.

But that’s not really how it works – at least not in the real world. But they don’t know that.

So they keep sending out their emails and they keep seeing little to no results. And they’re sitting in front of their computer wondering,

“Why isn’t anyone buying my stuff? Why isn’t anyone registering for my classes, workshops, teleseminars, or webinars? Why isn’t anyone clicking on my links?” And then they get frustrated and say, “Email marketing doesn’t work. Email marketing is outdated.”

Um… Email Marketing is Not Outdated.
You’re Just Doing it Wrong

Since his comment was in response to my Infusionsoft’s Biggest Fan post, I need to point out that Infusionsoft calls their approach: “Email Marketing 2.0″ It’s because the old way of email marketing… ok, let’s be honest, the LAZY way of email marketing isn’t going to work anymore. Today’s entrepreneurs and business owners are too savvy for that.

You can’t be lazy about your marketing, not really try, then send out an email and expect magic to happen. To be successful at email marketing you need to embrace Infusionsoft’s Email Marketing 2.0 approach.

Here’s a quick run down of what I interpret to be the differences between Email Marketing 1.0 (the old lazy way that used to work) and Email Marketing 2.0 (the new kick butt approach that totally works).

Email Marketing 1.0: Blast all of your current and past clients, prospects, vendors, and partners with a marketing sales message and hope that it resonates with someone.

Email Marketing 2.0: Tailor separate versions of your sales message for each segment of your list: current clients, past clients, vendors, affiliates, partners, prospects, etc. Each group gets a highly targeted email that speaks right to their needs and problems, which makes them instantly feel like you know exactly how they feel and your conversion rate increases.

Email Marketing 1.0: You use it only for your weekly, or monthly (not as effective) email newsletter to your whole list.

Email Marketing 2.0: You use it for your newsletter, small targeted sales messages, and all different types of multi-step follow up like the ideas listed below.

• The “Hey great to meet you at…” follow up sequence
• The “Thanks for subscribing…” follow up sequence
• The “Congratulations on your purchase…” follow up sequence
• The “Holiday Message…” stay in touch sequence
• The “Did you know…” stay in touch sequence

Email Marketing 1.0: Your follow up email is inconsistent, mostly just a single email and that’s it.

Email Marketing 2.0: Your follow up emails are pre-written, planned, and tested. They are not a single message, but instead a sequence of emails that build off of each other. Your follow up sequences can be 3 emails, 9 emails, 12 emails, or more, and they can be spread out over a couple weeks, a couple months, or even a year or more.

Email Marketing 1.0: You send your email newsletter and sometimes look at the report, but you mostly just wonder why it’s not working.

Email Marketing 2.0: You integrate Google Analytics and you track, measure, and test everything, looking at the reports from your email marketing service provider and Google Analytics to see what is working and what is not working, then you adjust your marketing accordingly.

Email Marketing 1.0: You operate in an email marketing bubble and you don’t put much effort into other forms of marketing to support your email marketing.

Email Marketing 2.0: You’re everywhere! You’re regularly posting rich, valuable, content to your blog or website, you’re sharing useful and helpful information across your social networks, you’re attending live networking events, you’re using direct mail, and you’re staying in the conversation with your audience, working to build strong, trust-based relationships.

Email Marketing 1.0: You’re thinking “I sent it, they will click it.” You wonder why you’re not seeing results. You never think it could be because you’re doing it wrong… Nope. It’s not working because email marketing is outdated. (FYI).

Email Marketing 2.0: You are reaping the benefits of an integrated marketing strategy. When you send out your email newsletter, or sales-oriented solo email blast, your community takes action. You see a spike in your website traffic, you see a significant jump in registrations and/or purchases, and you receive emails in response about your great article or about how excited they are about the purchase they just made or the class they just registered for.

Email Marketing 1.0: You use a general opt-out or unsubscribe link that removes them from all of your lists and mailings.

Email Marketing 2.0: You use custom opt-out or unsubscribe links that let people change their contact information, choose when they hear from you, and choose what topics they want to hear from you about.

Proof That Email Marketing Still Works and is Highly Effective

At Bourn Creative, we use an integrated marketing approach for ourselves and our clients, which means we weave a wide range of marketing strategies together so they all work together and support the efforts in each area to work toward one single comprehensive goal.

We use social networking to build, nurture, and enhance relationships. The people we connect with on Facebook and Twitter, end up clicking a link we share and reading a blog post on our site. While they are on our site they opt-in for the newsletter. Once they are on our newsletter, and when it is the right time for them, one of our messages will strike a nerve and they will become a client.

Now this process is pretty standard, but there are some things you have to take into account to make sure that this process actually works. For example:

• You actually have to work at connecting on Facebook and Twitter. Just posting links and retweeting or liking other people’s stuff isn’t enough. You have to have conversations. Would you walk up to someone at a live networking event, shove a printed copy of your special report in their hands, walk away, and expect them to hire you? No way! If you did that, you know where your report would be? In the trash (and they probably wouldn’t like you).
• When people come to your site, they need to be in awe. If your website stinks, it doesn’t matter how much you market or how hard you work at your marketing, your efforts will be wasted because the visitors you get there won’t convert.
• Your opt-in or irresistible free offer also needs to be AWESOME! It needs to be so good that your site visitors feel like they have to have it – like they need it and can’t leave your site without getting it. If it is just okay, if it is just something you decided to offer because you think its good, if it doesn’t solve a painful problem your audience is aware of, it won’t work.
• Your newsletter needs to be fantastic week after week. You need to regularly provide useful, interesting, and when you can, entertaining content that will help the reader. You need to make it personal so they get to know you a bit, relevant so it speaks to their needs, and valuable so they don’t unsubscribe. Remember, people buy when they are ready not when you are ready. So you need to keep publishing great content and when they’re ready, they’ll work with you because you stayed in the conversation. For example, we recently had a subscriber who has been on our newsletter list since 2008 finally pull the trigger and hire us for a monster project. This is an extremely valuable connection for us and when we asked why us and why now, they told us that they loved our newsletters and it just took them a long time to get in the position to be able to say, “GO!”

Traditional Email Marketing May be Outdated, But Email Marketing 2.0 is Here and It’s Kicking Serious Butt

So, to the guy who commented this morning about email marketing being outdated (FYI), I say that your notion of what email marketing really is and how it is used is outdated. I know an unbelievable number of entrepreneurs and business owners currently using email marketing in their business and achieving great success as a direct result of their efforts.

If you need some help, you can always hire us… and if your email marketing provider stinks, you can always move over to Infusionsoft. After all, as I mentioned before, I’m Infusionsoft’s biggest fan.

Email addresses should be obtained only by legitimate means like through opt-in and subscribe boxes on your website, or by specific request. This is why email marketing lists are often called opt-in lists. Valid contact information should be included in every piece of email marketing and a privacy policy should be provided.

Single Opt-In Marketing Lists vs. Double Opt-In Marketing Lists

• Single opt-in emails do not require a confirmation via email. In this case, when a customer subscribes, they are automatically added to your marketing list.
• Double opt-in emails require the subscriber to confirm their subscription and agree they do want to receive your email marketing messages. In this case, when they subscribe, a confirmation email is received in their inbox. They will only be added to your list if they click on the link in the email message.
• NOTE: Just because you meet someone at an event and they trade cards with you doesn’t give you the right to add them to your list. Also, adding everyone you have ever met to your list and justifying it with an unsubscribe link that gives them the option to not receive your ezine is unacceptable. If you use either of these tactics, you will be viewed as a spammer.

Remind Email or Ezine Subscribers How they Joined Your List

Many email marketers will include a 1-2 sentence description of how their list is generated. This short statement reminds the recipient that they did in fact opt-in to the marketing list.

For example: “You are receiving this email message because you made a verbal or written request at an event, opted-in on one of our websites, www.bourncreative.com, www.jenniferbourn.com, www.designandprofit.com, or purchased a product from Bourn Creative.”

Provide an Easy Unsubscribe or Opt-Out Option for Your Email Newsletter

Believe it or not, by making is clear that you include unsubscribe and opt-out links in each email message, email newsletter, or ezine, you will actually increase your subscriber count. At some point people who have joined your list may want to leave. By showing them that leaving your list is as easy as joining it, you bypass some of the fear associated with the possibility of receiving spam and unwanted email in their inboxes.

An email newsletter or ezine (email magazine) is a very popular form of email marketing. An ezine is an electronic form of communication that is sent out on an ongoing basis and used for business to business or business and consumer companies.

Because email marketing doesn’t require printing or postage, staying connected to your audience via email marketing is a more cost effective alternative to traditional print newsletters.

Email marketing is an essential tool to growing your business in today’s fast-paced world of Internet business. Offering open, conversational, and interactive communications is quickly becoming a necessity for business marketing. In fact, these days, it seems as if everyone already has, or is currently developing some type of email newsletter or email marketing system.

No matter what type of business you have or what services or products you sell, a value-added ezine can be a great tool to help build your business. Publishing an ezine, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even quarterly (if it makes sense) helps you stay in front of your customers and prospects, increase your marketing “touches,” and generate more leads and referrals.

Publishing An Ezine or E-Newsletter Will Also Help You:

• Save valuable budget dollars (and some trees) by going digital. By producing your ezine online, you’ll save on design fees, printing, postage, envelopes and mail handling, not to mention the fact that your ezine will get to your audience much faster than snail mail.
• Increase your brand recognition by getting your image and name in front of your customers and prospects more often. Include your logo, tagline, ezine title, color palette, brand graphics, and photo in every issue.
• Connect with your target market, customers, and prospective customers on a regular basis, keeping you at the top of their minds and the tip of their tongues, ensuring that when your services or products are needed they will buy from you or refer you to their friends, family, and business associates.
• Increase your credibility and gain the trust of your target market, making it easier to sell your product or service.
• Educate your current clients on all of your services, products and talents, enticing them to expand their relationship with you and increase profits from your existing customer base with the “I didn’t know you do that, can you do it for me?” response.
• Attract new opportunities, such as strategic partnerships, joint ventures, media interviews, speaking engagements, and more.
• Create new passive streams of revenue by referring products or services that earn you a commission (affiliate programs), directly selling your products or services, or selling ad space in your ezine.
• Expand your network and build your list by capturing the email addresses of your website visitors with an opt-in box and getting permission to market to them.
• Organize your industry knowledge and package it into products, programs, reports, ebooks, tips lists, articles, and endorsements that can easily be reused and/or repurposed.
• Reach a wider audience and bring in more potential customers by repurposing your email newsletter content on your blog or submitting your articles to news bureaus, PR websites, and ezine article directories.

From designing and programming your newsletter templates, to writing content, and implementing each issue, if you want to publish an email newsletter to enhance and build your brand, Bourn Creative can help. We offer design, copywriting, and full-service email marketing implementation services for businesses just like yours.

So, what do they do? They put it off and procrastinate.

Soon, it has been weeks, or sometimes even months and nothing has been sent out to their list. No announcements. No marketing. No helpful tips or information.

Unfortunately, their list of warm leads is growing colder by the minute!

Here is a quick list of email newsletter topics or content ideas that you can use to help put an end to writers’ block:

Adding an email newsletter and email marketing to your marketing strategy should be a stress-free task. If you don’t enjoy writing and implementing your ezine each week or each month, consider delegating or outsourcing your email newsletter. Copywriters and virtual assistants can handle various parts of your email marketing implementation, or you can outsource your email newsletter headache to the expert team here at Bourn Creative.

Whether you need a turn-key solution, including copywriting, design, programming, and implementation, or you just want someone else to format your content in your template, Bourn Creative is the perfect partner to add to your team! Contact us today to learn more.

No matter what type of business you have or what services or products you sell, a value-added email newsletter can be a great tool to help attract more customers and prospects. Email marketing helps you stay in front of your customers and prospects, increase your marketing “touches,” and generate more leads and referrals.

To do any type of email marketing, you have to set up an account with an email marketing service provider. These service providers enforce strict email rules, work tirelessly to keep their servers white-listed (liked) by the internet service providers / email providers, provide you the ability to track and measure your email marketing campaign results, and manage your email marketing list subscribes and unsubscribes.

Listed below are a few great email marketing service providers. The providers marked with an asterisk (*), are the providers I currently work with, or have worked with in the past for either myself or my clients.

• www.InfusionSoft.com*
• www.ConstantContact.com*
• www.Aweber.com*
• www.1ShoppingCart.com*
• www.iContact.com*
• www.myEmma.com*
• www.VerticalResponse.com*
• www.MailChimp.com
• www.EmailBrain.com
• www.GetResponse.com
• www.Bluehornet.com
• www.Lyris.com
• www.bronto.com

1. Add a Sign Up form or Opt-In Box on Every Page of Your Website
2. Advertise in Another Ezine
3. Promote Your Ezine in Your Email Signature
4. Send Out a Press Release
5. Announce Your Ezine to Your Network

Remember, with a personal, relevant, value-added ezine, you can attract new customers and prospects to join your list. And, that’s what it’s all about, building your list and getting contacts into your marketing funnel.

With that in mind, let’s move on to email marketing list building tips six through ten:

TIP 6: Use Your Business Card

If the back of your business card is blank, print new cards and include your mini ezine advertisement on the back. Include a call to action or an irresistible offer that drives them to your website to get a free gift and a complimentary subscription to your ezine.

TIP 7: Attend Live Networking Events

The people you meet in person will be your most loyal and valuable prospects and customers, and if they opt-in to your ezine list, the probability that they will purchase something from you skyrockets. After all, people do business with people they know, like, and trust. Taking the time to connect with people in person, accelerates the “know” and “like” factors, and a consistently well done ezine will build the “trust” factor.

When you are networking, be sure to mention your ezine in your commercial. If you have time, or someone wants to know more, chat about the benefits subscribers receive. Let them know when your next issue will be sent and offer to add them to your list. If they are still unsure, offer to send them a sample copy to review.

TIP 8: Use Article Marketing to Promote Your Ezine

Article marketing is the use of a written article to market and promote your business, products, services, or programs. You can write value-added articles on any area of expertise and post them to several article marketing websites, such as www.ezinearticles.com and www.articlesbase.com. Attached to each of your articles is your author resource box that contains more information about you! Here you can include a link back to your website, a plug for your ezine and special offer, your tagline, and more.

TIP 9: Get Published in Other Ezines and Blogs

Bloggers are HUNGRY for fresh content and if you approach them the right way, will usually welcome a well-written guest post. Make sure you look at who the bloggers target market is and what the content theme of the blog is prior to contacting them. You want to submit a post idea or post content that fits their market, stays in the same genre of content the blog readers are expecting to receive, and provides information that will benefit the readers.

Just as bloggers are looking for new fresh content, so are ezine publishers! Many entrepreneurs that publish weekly ezines will occasionally publish feature articles by guest writers. The same criteria apply for ezine publishers: 1) Make sure the article provides information of value to the readers and 2) Make sure your article topic fits the overall ezine theme and reader expectations.

It also doesn’t hurt to offer a reciprocal post for them on your blog or in your ezine. Check out what they are doing in their business. Are they planning an event or getting ready to launch a product? Offer them a post around that time to promote their business efforts.

TIP 10: Start Doing Some Public Speaking

Public speaking is a great opportunity to do some ethical, permission-based list building. And with an ezine, your post-event follow up can be easy and inexpensive. As the speaker at an event, you already have the audience’s attention, now it is your responsibility to give them an easy way to sign up for your ezine.

Here are some ways you can build your list as a speaker:

• Offer to send a free copy of your presentation notes, or a copy of your PowerPoint presentation to attendees who give your their business card.
• You mention your ezine in your presentation and pass around a signup sheet to collect their names and email addresses. Make sure your signup sheet includes a compelling headline with your ezine name, a short description, and your opt-out terms or privacy policy.
• If you have a table or booth at the event, you can hold a drawing for a free gift or an hour of consulting time. To enter the drawing attendees simply drop their business card in the bowl!
• You can offer a free gift or a prize during the close of your presentation. First, mention the item or offer you are promoting and all of the fantastic benefits attendees can receive as a result. Make sure you get them really excited about your offer. Second, announce that one lucky person in the room is going to get it for free along with a free subscription to your ezine! Third, tell the audience to get out their business cards. You can either have someone collect them, or have people hand them in.