Connecting Through E-Mail

Excerpted from How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders: Boosting Your Business & Buzz on the Web by Catherine Seda.

Growing your e-mail list is the most powerful and profitable Internet marketing strategy (although getting subscribers to your news feed is becoming a close contender). With a click of the Send button, you can instantly broadcast your message to subscribers who want you to contact them. What's better than that?

Marketing to your own e-mail list, when done right, is really a blend of advertising and public relations. It's advertising because ultimately you're selling something. That's why this chapter is in Part II. Yet, it's public relations when you offer valuable information that is not part of your sales pitch. This advertising/PR combination helps you connect better with your e-mail subscribers and create a community of fans that will boost your business. Sadly, many business professionals focus mistakenly on getting new traffic while forgetting to maximize an e-mail strategy that easily pays off...over and over again.

Think a newsletter is your golden ticket? Not anymore. Simply offering an e-zine, short for electronic magazine and often referred to as an online newsletter, is not nearly as effective as it was in the past. Let's face it--Internet users are sick of spam, and they're overwhelmed by their own daily e-mail communications. So they're no longer subscribing to every interesting e-zine.

Adding to these challenges, more companies and consultants offer an online newsletter now. How often are you invited to sign up? I've been asked at retail stores and at my chiropractor's office. I've even been signed up to e-zines after I've handed my business card to people who asked for it, which really peeves me. (Don't do that. That's spam, not guerilla marketing.) The marketing of e-zines online and offline is increasing.

Even offering free information, a product, or service in exchange for a first name and e-mail address isn't a surefire way to get your e-mail list to explode. I'm not saying these tactics don't work. They do. Just understand that like us, other people are more carefully guarding their e-mail Inbox, too.

Today, more than ever, you've got to communicate the value of your free offer. Then you must continue to deliver value in every e-mail you send. This is how to turn subscribers into fans. Who better to rave about you than your fans? Your fan base is bigger than you think. It could include prospects, investors, journalists, students, future and current employees, and even Internet hobbyists, not just customers.

Your fans will promote your business in their e-zines. And they'll mention your URL on their Web sites and blogs, boosting your buzz, as well as your link popularity.

Again, who loves links? Spiders do! While crawling the Web, they'll find these links, which add to your site's expert status. Expert sites are rewarded with higher organic search rankings.

In this chapter, I'll reveal chief ways to make invisible e-mail campaigns visible to spiders. But first, I'll discuss optimizing your e-mail list for your human audience, which should always be your first focus. The search engines contribute greatly to your online visibility. However, spiders don't impact your bottom line--people do.