Email-Marketing-2The amount of income you can make in online network marketing is tied directly to how large you can build your email list and the value you provide in your communications. Some percentage of your list subscribers will sign up into your primary business or purchase products from you – but only after they have come to like you and see you as a valuable source of information. The majority of the list subscribers will not join your primary business or buy your products. However, based on the relationship you develop with them over time, you’ll be able to market related goods and services to them.

The wide proliferation of the Internet and everyone’s reliance on email as a communication for business and personal use opens up a whole new world of advertising that goes far beyond traditional methods. In the past, if you wanted to build a network marketing business, you had to get on the phone, call everyone you know, meet in person and hope referrals come in over time. Or, expensive ads, flyers, business cards, etc. drained a lot of money with low results. A lot of people gave up before they could build momentum and make money.

Email means your messages can reach a huge amount of people instantaneously. And it all arrives through one medium that they rely upon for the transfer of information back and forth. This creates vast opportunity as well a challenge. People receive A LOT of email. Here’s some free online marketing tips to make sure recipients actually open, read and hopefully act on your messages.

1. Focus on your subject lines. This is the one thing you should probably invest the most time in and maintain the most flexibility in. This is the first and often last impression your target will see. Try different ones out and watch your traffic and conversions carefully. This is the subject of a several other articles on copy writing.

2. Be careful what time of day you send out email. Don’t get into the habit of sending out email blasts when it is convenient for you. Build your messages and subjects so you can circulate them when people are likely to see them and open them. I’d recommend sending them NOT before 9:00 a.m. and not after 7 p.m. You want to avoid them being caught up and buried behind other email.

3. Email list management software. The market leaders are Aweber and GetResponse. These services allow you to create and grow unlimited different lists, send prewritten messages on a follow-up schedule to people by list and also send broadcast messages across lists. Both Aweber and GetResponse will report back to you how many people opened your email and how many clicked on any links embedded in the email. Choose carefully as your email list is perhaps your most valuable asset. You need a solution that provides solid reporting back to you so that you know what is and is not working. Also, make sure that you own the names on the list should you ever choose to move to another provider.

4. Consider ready-made email marketing lists. These are pre-existing lists that allow you to send to their members. You are sharing this list with a lot of other people. But, this is a great way to get started while you build your own private list. There are a lot of software programs to choose from. And a lot that make false promises. Here are two that I have used that you may want to consider – ListJoe and ViralURL. Both have similar functions and both, most importantly, get you started right away with IMMEDIATE access to large, pre-existing subscriber lists. Both are free to try out but your best bet is their lowest level of paid account. The free versions require you to read others’ emails sent through the networks to get credits for usage, and it will take a lot of time for you to build up enough credits for you to make an impact. For about $15 a month you can email thousands of people every few days.

Set up a SEPARATE, free email account to use with these services. You’re going to get A LOT of email and you won’t want it clogging up your normal activities. Take the 10 minutes to set up a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo account or you will hate yourself later.

Both List Joe and Viral URL give you a great amount of of access to operate within their respective networks. Both have invested significant money in packaging integrated, powerful email marketing software that you simply can’t get as an individual home based business. In our experience, we recommend getting both programs, as they give you access to a larger universe of subscribers that are already opted in and used to receiving these types of offers.