Email Marketing - 10 Top Reasons to BE Doin' It

By Karen Cioffi

While marketing strategies can come and go, there are still those that are top contenders and email marketing is one of them. And, it's an important strategy in book marketing.

So, what makes email marketing so important - why exactly should you be doin' it?

Here is a list of 10 top reasons:

1. Email lists are personal and build relationships. They help you develop a relationship with your subscribers. No other marketing strategy offers this ‘personal touch’ element.

2. Emails drive targeted traffic to your website. This means the people clicking on your email links (CTAs) are already interested in what you offer.

3. It’s one of the most cost-effective strategies there is (in other words, it’s cheap and has a great ROI).

4. It’s is easy and quick. Services, like GetResponse make it super-easy to create lists (campaigns), create the coded optins, and allows you to send out emails immediately.

5. It allows for automation. This means you can schedule emails to go out at specific days and times and segment (divide) your list.

6. It’s versatile and customizable. You can create a variety of campaigns, segway into other campaigns, use for weekly workshops, and so much more.

7. It generates results. Email marketing is one of the only strategies that encourages subscribers to become customers or to take other actions.

8. Allows you to measure results. Email marketing services have analytical tools in place that give you much need information, such as how many subscribers open your emails and how many click on the links in your emails.

9. Beats social media’s conversion rates. Conversion is the process of a person taking a desired action, such as clicking on your link or optin.

In a study by McKinsey and Company, it shows that email exceeds social media’s conversion rate by 40X. (1)

Forty times. That’s huge!

10. According to Convince and Convert.com, “People who buy products through email spend 138% more than people who don’t receive email offers.” Along with this, “44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.” (2)

You may feel it’s all just too much. You already blog as part of your marketing strategy, isn’t that enough? Well, it’s really not.

Keep in mind that if you use social media to share your posts, you’re only reaching a minute percentage of your followers. And, less than 1% of your website visitors will buy from a random blog post they clicked onto.

As number 7 above says, email marketing produces results. And, your efforts can be as simple as linking to your most recent blog post from within your newsletter or email. Be sure to use it as part of your book marketing strategy.

To get started with Email Marketing, you need an opt-in box. I use Get Response and like it so much, I'm an affiliate for them. If you need to get your email marketing going, start with Get Response.

For an in-depth look at email marketing check out my 45+ page ebook (no fluff), Email Marketing Right V2. It tells you exactly what you need to do to effectively build your subscriber list, and it's only $3.97! 

About the Author:

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children's author, ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor. Subscribe to the RSS to get must-know writing and marketing tips! 

And, check out Karen’s e-classes through WOW! Women on Writing:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

And, to start the new year, I have a useful gift for you:

Make Money Writing – Create Kindle eBooks

 HAVE A HEALTHY, HAPPY, AND 
PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

Karen and Writers on the Move

It's New Year's Eve

2016 Coming to a Close – 2017 Just Before Us, Bright and Shiny

Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover.”

Make 2017 a year of action rather than procrastination.

To end 2016 and latch onto 2017, here are 11 quotes I find inspirational. Hope you do too.

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
~ Lyndon B. Johnson

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” ~ Wayne Gretzky

"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."  ~ Dale Carnegie

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” ~ Will Rogers

“You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
~ Christopher Columbus

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” ~ Stephen Covey

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” ~ Warren Buffet

“If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. ~ C.S. Lewis

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” ~ John C. Maxwell

HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR'S EVE!

One Last Edit: Re-think before Submitting

Can you look through your completed book without making any changes? I tried it after thinking I had finished up the basic editing and even the polishing. There couldn't possibly be anything more to "fix," thought me. Wrong. I found more changes, important changes, many changes. Throwing caution to the wind, I gave up all notions of completion and continued, alternating between rummaging through additional passes as the need occurred to me with my pinpoint-sharpened #2, and then laying my book down to rest for short periods of time. My conclusion? The persistent question: When will I ever be done?  

What do I need to re-think?

While in the throes of this quest I decided, what the heck, what's one more pass? I came up with:  What do I need to re-think? It turned out to be the most revealing edit of all. It resulted in a title change, removal of a subplot (that was BIG, but I had to do it), addition of a character (that was fun), rearranging some of the scenes and re-checking the arcs, making sure someone or something didn't fall off the face of the page. Each character arc, including arcs in each character's dialogue, and each event, had to be followed from beginning to end. If I hadn't done that particular check, pearls of the necklace I had begun to string would have fallen off before the clasp could have been attached. Nightmares could have resulted. I could have wound up with another fire-engine red I, another school daze Incomplete, only this time from an editor and not my teacher (if I should be so lucky!)

Take One More Look

• Go back to the theme card you prepared before or during the writing. Make sure the main theme shines through and ask yourself, Do the minor themes bolster the main theme?
• Check the structure one more time. Is it solid?
• Does each character have an arc? Each story part introduced have follow-through to the end? Follow each one all the way through to make sure.
• Is your main character's flaw/need evident in the beginning and satisfied/solved from what she's learned by the end?
• Have you done a scene check to make sure there isn't any section that might work better elsewhere?
• Is there any character or scene that doesn't move the story forward?
• Is there anything to add to strengthen any part, or any weak part to delete which will strengthen the story?
• Is description kept at a minimum (in a children's story)? Is the story told through dialogue and action?
• If it is a mystery, make a list of the clues, red herrings and reveal to make sure everything is covered.
• Do one last fact check.

If you grow weary of so many revisions, give your story a rest and come back to it later. One of my writing instructors once told me, you don't write a book, you re-write a book. When at first I thought I was done, I had to disengage from disappointment when finding so many glaring errors. This must be the armor people talk about that writers must grow and wear, and perhaps why people admire authors so much. For the fortitude and single-mindedness it takes to do the seat-time, on and on, until we are finally satisfied with the finished product, whatever it takes. Being sure of your work is a must if a writer wants to produce a sparkling, page-turning, humdinger of a book!

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 100 articles for adults and children, and six short stories for children. Recently, she completed Joyce Sweeney's online fiction courses, picture book course and mystery and suspense course. She has currently finished her first book, a mystery/ghost story for 7-11 year-olds, and is in the process of publishing it and moving on to new 

writing projects. Follow Linda on Facebook.

Image: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/

One Easy Way to Learn to Write Good Copy

Guest Post by Cathy Chapman, Ph.D.

It doesn't matter what wonderful service you provide or how amazing your product is, if you don't let people know it's there, no one will buy it. Sure, word of mouth works for some things. For most, however, you need to write something and get it out to people to let them know what you have. The question is, how can someone on a limited budget with beginning skills as a copywriter, someone who writes advertising copy, let people know about their product.

The answer is simple. Copy what others write.

No Plagiarizing Allowed

When I said to copy what others wrote, I don't mean to steal their words and use them in your own advertising copy. I mean for you to take pen and paper in hand, no computers allowed unless you literally cannot use your hands, and copy a sales letter word for word. This is a powerful learning technique used in many circles. When you write with pen and paper, something magical happens in the brain. I can't tell you all the neurochemical responses in that brain of yours, but when you write by hand, there is a complex interaction in the brain that helps you learn faster and easier.

Don't spend your time physically reproducing any sales letter you come across. Use your time wisely and copy, for learning purposes only, the best sales letters you can find. You can do an internet search using the keywords "winning sales letters" and come up with a treasure trove of letters you can begin copying to get the hang of writing a good sales letter.

One of the most successful, if not the most successful letter to introduce a new product was written for a newspaper you may have read or at least have seen the name. That is The Wall Street Journal. This very successful financial newspaper was once only an idea in someone's mind. As time has demonstrated, it was a great idea. The problem was that people had to buy initial subscriptions for it to be successful. This very simple two-page letter has generated an estimated $2 billion in revenue for The Wall Street Journal.

The Step before Copying

The sales letter that launched The Wall Street Journal is one to use for leaning by copying by hand numerous times. Before you put pen to paper, read it out loud several times. Listen to the cadence of the words. Pay attention to the imagery. Notice the feelings you have as you are reading it. Can you put yourself in the place of each of these young men? Which one would you rather be? Would you want success so much that you would pull out your check book, fill out the form and pop it in the mail? Remember, the internet wasn't even a spark in the mind of anyone at that time. This direct mail piece had to provoke immediate action before the offer was lost under a pile of other advertising.

Once you've read the letter and put yourself in the reader's position, begin copying the words. Feel the cadence as you write. Let the words and the rhythm of them imbed themselves within you from the interaction of what you see with your eyes and reproduce with the movement of hand. This simple task, although it takes time, will move you faster in learning the skill of copywriting.

You can then take what you've learned and write your own powerful sales letter in your own wonderful style that may be the next $2,000,000,000 winner.

Cathy Chapman, PhD, LCSW is a strategic marketer, copywriter and coach for the self-help and alternative health care market. To receive your Special Report "The Bare Necessities for an On-Line Marketing Campaign with Little Cash Outlay... Plus One" go to http://www.mindbodyhealthwriter.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6553599

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A Gift From Writers on the Move to You

Another year is coming to a close and at this time we at Writers on the Move would like to THANK YOU for being a part of our online lives, for following our authors and writers, for commenting and sharing our work, and for subscribing to our site.

To show our appreciation, below are two ebooks to help guide you and motivate you toward writing and marketing success in the New Year. These are two regulars for our year end gifts. They're so helpful, they're worth re-giving!

And, as a bonus, you can share these ebooks. You can offer it as a gift in your newsletter, on your website, as a bonus to a gift or product you’re offering, or for some other incentive. Please though, be sure to them intact.

Click the links to download:

Achieve Your Goals with 3 Must-Have Psychological Assets

A Simple System to Achieve Your Goals

Next week, we'll have a very useful brand new gift - be sure to stop by!

Have a Happy, Healthy, and Safe
Holiday Season and New Year!