[Karsten]

Hi got myself a nice article directory recently and while I am not planning to make it the next ezinearticles I thought it would be a nice idea to wet my toes with email marketing (never done it before and I am by no means an experienced marketer at all)

In a nutshell I would like to send out emails to the authors once in a while providing (usefull information?) and hopefully not pissing off anybody

So whats the best way to start this venture without being shot right away..??

[Admin]

Hey Karsten,

Some members will consider it spam. BUT I made sure to put in the TOS that when you sign up for an account to submit articles to my AD sites, you automatically sign up for the newsletter as well.

If they wanted to unsubscribe, they also lose their account in the article directory. That took care of the problem.

Then I loaded the names and email addresses into that autoresponder I was telling you about.

To build trust with the list, I offered a lot of great content that gave the valuable information, not something from an AD site or that I ripped off from someone else. I gave them tips to better their article marketing, marketing in general, and all kinds of other tips. I also sent useful websites that would help them in their marketing efforts, and some free stuff.

Then, for every 4 newsletters I sent, I thru in an affiliate link for a small useful cheap script or something like that for about the first 7 months.

That's about when they started buying. Then I moved to putting affiliate links or my own products in every other newsletter.

[stacyfox]

Karsten,

I developed a list of over 800 highly targeted people with a specific problem (currently going through foreclosure) and had no idea how to use it. I talked with my mentor about this and he suggested that I develop an autoresponder series with lots of good information. Apparently, it takes 7-11 contacts before you make a sale.

I put together 13 articles to go out twice a week for 7 weeks on autoresponder. At the end of each article, I had a simple link to an ebook I wrote. Then two times in those 7 weeks, I sent out a stand alone advertisement. I've started making money off of that list as a result.

I haven't found that too many people have unsubscribed either. I'm giving them good information about a real need and they're staying pretty loyal. I currently have 873 people on the list and there have been just over 1000 sign ups over all, so my attrition rate hasn't been too bad.

HTH

Stacy

[aryaman2008]

Well you can try out with e-mail marketing,but i doubt that unsolicited mails might be considered as being sent by spamsters.However,you might get some results.How about targetting people and befriending them.Once you all get acquainted they can bring their referrals.That way also a network can grow.Just i am putting up my suggestion.

[birdtrio3]

I agree with what Stacy mentioned regarding good information will lead to a loyal readership. Make sure it's not downright spam you are sending out, but instead incorporate what your readers will want to read about and their current needs and interests.

[aakay4u]

I dont like this unsolicited e-mail system.It's better to develop relationships with few and then use their network.Twitter can be good option to get a large network.Many people have benefitted from it.

[Karsten]

but there are still a lot of people who making bank with emailing people

[jbolte1976]

Hey Karsten,

Hope you're doing well. Have you built a list from your AD's authors yet? I need to do the same thing so I'm curious as to your progress, etc.



Jason

[Karsten]

I just got some nice tools so can extract the emails/authors from AD
but I am still thinking if I should go with GAR or AW or host a solution myself

then I wanted to offer some kind of useful information (for the first mail) or even a nice tool which could be beneficial to articlemarketers...

I already integrated AM into my AD so the whole process is more or less automated!

One thing though: As soon as I pay too much attention to an article etc this kind of "taking controll" kicks in and so I decided not to pay any attention at all to the articles! Once I found a couple of bad apples I delete them but everything else is tooooooo time consuming
Maybe I will switch to AF myself