Most website owners focus on building content for their websites, without understanding that email marketing is one of the most critical facets in building their profitable online business. But if you are new to the whole concept of building an online business, you are probably wondering "How do I actually create email marketing campaigns that work?" I think it's important that we first discuss why it's important to learn about email marketing and why it's critical to your success that you make it a major focus of your efforts.

Email marketing right now is probably the most powerful form of internet communication. If you don't understand email marketing, then you are probably going to make 90% less money than you could be making if you use it effectively. And while a well set up website or blog is a great tool for attracting visitors, if you don't make the most of those visitors when they arrive at your website, you're pretty much wasting your time.

With nearly everything being sold online these days, email marketing is involved in some way. In all of the big product launches you see in all sorts of niche markets, email is like the blood that carries the oxygen around the body. It's really important that you understand how to do email marketing effectively, or you're probably not going to be all that successful with your online business.

Email marketing really is an incredible form of communication, because in the past, we couldn't follow up with prospects and customers and do sequences of communication. Before email became mainstream and before the internet came along, if I wanted to follow up with my prospects and customers, I would have to call somebody on the phone or write them a direct mail piece, or if it was cost effective, I could visit them in person. Then of course I'd have to track everything on a card or in a database so I know where they were in the sequence.

But now you can use an autoresponder and program a sequence of messages that go out automatically. They get a new message every couple of days in the exact order you want them to receive them, and you can sequence the whole thing so it automatically runs in the background without you lifting a finger.

Here's how to set up your email marketing system in just a few easy steps. What you do is -

Step 1 - Grab an autoresponder service (you can get a good one for about $20 a month).

Step 2 - Take out a piece of paper, and script out the conversation you would have if you turned up at your prospect's house every couple of days and were trying to build a relationship with them and convince them to buy your stuff. Write out all the things you'd say and all the questions they would ask, and then go ahead and convert that into an email sequence.

Now because you're not going to be able to get feedback from them and answer their questions on the spot, you are going to have to imagine the questions your readers will have, and you have to answer all that stuff in your new email sequence. So, write out the conversation you are going to have, and write a series of autoresponder messages that build a relationship just like you would do in person.

Step 3 - The real key to successful email marketing is to get started RIGHT NOW. If you wait until tomorrow, if you don't sign up right now for your autoresponder account and you don't go and write out your messages, and sequence those autoresponders and start getting some sort of results right now, then chances are you're not going to ever do it.

Because if you follow the 10 steps in building a properly constructed website, you WILL attract people to your website over time. But you want to have this automated follow up system ready BEFORE your visitors arrive. Every person who joins your email list is like dollars in the back. Every day you wait, it's costing you big time.

So you've got to go and do it straight away - you could have this ready by tomorrow and start to have some of your website traffic opting in to your system and you can start making money by tomorrow afternoon.

Go and do this stuff now!

Your Action Steps

1. Go and grab an autoresponder account.

2. Write out the conversation you'd have with a prospect you were trying to convince to buy your product or service. Give them the information they need to make an informed decision.

3. Create a subscriber sign up page. It's just another page of your site with some text and a subscriber form supplied by your autoresponder service. Important Tip - It's best to offer a bonus to help convince more subscribers to join your list because as we've said, every subscriber is worth a lot to you.

4. Put an autoresponder optin form for your Newsletter on every page of your website and ask your visitors to subscribe.

This is so important I can't stress it enough - you must focus a good portion of your time on building a list of interested prospects, and then building a relationship with them over time. Don't just rely on the once off visitors your website or blog brings you, focus on getting people to subscribe to your list and you'll have a much more profitable long term business.

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