Do you prefer writing your own e-mail marketing messages? 

If you are ready to do an e-mail promotion, but prefer not to use the pre-written e-mail messages we have provided for you, please feel free to write your own! Because all successful e-mail marketing campaigns tend to have some very specific things in common, we have created this AffirmWare Special Report of tips and tricks for writing successful e-mail promotions to assist you in writing the most effective marketing messages to send to your opt-in list.

AffirmWare Special Report:

Tips and Tricks for Writing Successful E-mail Promotions Proven to Exponentially Crank-Up Your Click-Through Rate and Sell Your Affiliate Products with a Phenomenal Conversion Rate!

Main Points of This Article:

• A short introduction to e-mail marketing
• Why you should be using e-mail to promote your affiliate products
• How to write simple but effective content for your e-mail promotions
• How to write subject lines to get your messages opened and avoid spam filters
• How to best format your e-mail promotions for maximum readability
• The must have tools for managing your e-mail promotional campaigns
• Final thoughts from Jeff Staniforth to You

A short introduction to e-mail marketing

One of the most effective ways you can promote affiliate products online is through the use of e-mail marketing. Here at AffirmWare, we strongly encourage all of our affiliates to utilize e-mail marketing to maximize their sales commissions.

As a matter of fact, we believe so strongly in the effectiveness of e-mail marketing that we have created some pre-written campaigns which you can simply "cut and paste' and send to your own customers as if you wrote them yourself. Our marketing campaigns are professionally written, tested for high conversion rates, and contain winning subject lines to ensure your messages are read and not trapped in spam filters.

However, please understand that we do not require you to use our pre-written e-mail messages. Why would we? After all, no one knows your own customers/friends better than you do! And, because your customers are likely already used to your unique style of writing they are actually more apt to respond best to messages which come directly from you, in the style they have come to know and trust. 

Thankfully, you do not have to be a professional writer in order to create e-mail messages which sell; this is a learned skill which anyone can master! To that end, we have created this AffirmWare Special Report to give you all of the tips and tricks necessary for you to create effective sales e-mail messages - in just a few minute's time. 

Why you should be using e-mail to promote your affiliate products

Nothing is a more effective or profitable tool for Internet Marketing than a personal e-mail message written by you and sent by you to your opt-in mailing list. Because you best understand your customers, and because you have built-up a relationship with them by communicating with them regularly, you have the ability to personally recommend products which you believe they will be interested in. 

Additionally, you are able to customize your messages to show your customers why a specific product will benefit them. If you are promoting only those products which best fit your unique niche market, then you will have sales as a result of your e-mail promotions!

Taking the time to build a relationship with your list members is vital to the success of any e-mail marketing campaign. Your subscribers chose to subscribe to your list because they want to hear what you have to say. If you "talk" to them regularly through e-mail, and take the time to ensure that you are sending them valuable and relevant information, then they will begin to trust you and will become more and more open to your product recommendations.

How to write simple but effective content for your e-mail promotions

Writing your own e-mail promotion messages does not have to be a time consuming or even a difficult process. The key is to remember that you are trying to build a relationship with your readers, and you do this by making them feel special and unique, rather than simply a member of a large anonymous list. 

Here are seven steps to help you successfully write marketing messages:

1. Write in a Personal Tone - Rather than writing your message to a group of people, choose to write it as if you are writing to one of your friends. Would you use a lot of flowery language and sales talk when messaging a friend? Of course not! So, don't do it in your marketing messages either. Pretend you are writing to just one person and your messages will keep a personal tone.

2. Tell Your Reader What the Benefits to Them Will Be - People want to know what they can gain from purchasing something. When you market a product to your list, make sure you take the time to explain to your readers why they need this product; and what the benefits to them will be. Be specific and encourage your readers to check out products for themselves by clicking on your affiliate link.

3.  Stay Honest - When you are promoting products to your list, it is vital that you are honest with them about the pros and con's of any product. Not every product is the best choice for every person. Additionally, not every product is excellent in every way. So, be honest with your readers if the product is lacking in one area or another. This will help build-up your credibility and also help to keep your charge backs to a minimum.

4. Speak From Knowledge - Ideally you should not be promoting products which you do not own for yourself. In order to successfully promote a product, you should have personal experience with it; enough so that you can talk freely and honestly about it. 

5. Keep it Short - No one wants to read a long e-mail message. Because of this, you want to make your marketing messages short and to the point. After all, your goal is simply to get your readers to click on your affiliate link and then to let the sales letter pages do their job. It doesn't take a 1000 word essay to get a click - a couple short paragraphs is plenty.

6. Use Simple Language - It is said that the average person reads on a 6th grade level. By trying to sound like an "expert" by using large or complicated words, you will turnoff your readers. Your readers need to be made to feel as if they are equal to you - not below. 

7. Test Your Messages - One of the easiest ways to make yourself look like a newbie to e-mail marketing is to send out a message to your list which you have not first tested. Rather than sending a message to your entire list, first send the message to one or two of your own e-mail accounts and check them to see how the message looks on the receiving end. By doing this simple step it gives you the freedom to make changes if your message doesn't look like you expected it to. Once the message has gone to your entire list, you simply have to live with any errors or bad formatting choices.

How to write subject lines to get your messages opened and avoid spam filters

You have two issues to contend with when you send a message to your list. The first is getting your reader to be interested enough in the subject line to open the message. The second is to keep your subject line from causing your messages to get sucked into a spam filter. 

Take for example all of those messages you see in your own inbox each day, with subject lines that read like the following:

MAKE $5400 TODAY

NEWSLETTER

YOU CAN'T MISS THIS

IMPORTANT

THIS MESSAGE IS NOT SPAM

When you see these subject lines what is the first thing that you do? Spam filter them? Me too! The subject lines above simply scream "SPAM." Not to mention that they are usually from some weird e-mail address and offer you no motivation whatsoever to make the effort to open them.

As you can see, your message's subject line is very important in getting your readers to open up your messages and read them. Additionally, if your readers are using a decent spam filter, you need to take care to avoid those "spammy" looking subjects (like the above) because the software is liable to filter them out on its own before your reader ever sees your message.

Here are five tips which will help you to write more effective subject lines that will get your messages read:

1. Make an Announcement - It is effective to use your subject line to make an announcement to your readers. You can also use your subject line to share news.

Example - My review of AffirmWare's Sculptor 3 Software

Example - AffirmWare's new product is launching today

2. Use Curiosity - Make your reader curious about what the rest of your message has to say.

Example - Have you heard about this amazing product?

3. Give a Benefit - Use your subject line to tell your reader what kind of benefit they can gain by opening your message.

Example - Learn how to market through e-mail

4. Keep it Short - Your subject lines should never be more than 60 characters; the shorter the better! If your subject lines get cutoff in your reader's e-mail program, they are more likely to believe your message is spam.

Good Example - Learn About E-mail Marketing

Bad Example - Learn everything you ever wanted to know about e-mail marketing

5. Use Personalization - If you have the ability to personalize subject lines with your subscriber's first names always do it. Readers are much more likely to read a message that says "Donna, have you heard of this eBook?" rather than "Have you heard of this eBook?" Subject lines which contain a first name are said to increase response by up to 64%!

In addition to the previous five tips, it is important that you take the time to craft subject lines which tell your reader exactly how they are going to save money, save time, make their life easier, etc… by opening up and reading the information contained in your message. People are naturally motivated by understanding there is a benefit to them for taking action. 

To help you write your subject lines, try viewing your product from your customers' point of view. Additionally, keep the following questions in mind:

• How will my reader benefit by reading this message?
• What will my reader learn by reading this message?
• Will my product save my reader time?
• Will my product save my reader money?
• Will my product help to improve the life of my reader in some way?

By writing subject lines which emphasize benefits to your readers, you will find a dramatic increase in the number of subscribers who choose to open and read your e-mail messages.

How to best format your e-mail promotions for maximum readability

Once you have written your message and crafted a great subject line, then it is time to address the issue of readability for your readers. Formatting is a big killer for your conversion rates if it is not done correctly. Bad formatting in messages makes you appear like you don't know what you are doing. Well formatted messages, with correct spelling and grammar of course, help you to build a relationship with your readers and come across as an expert in your chosen niche topic. For these reasons, formatting is vital to take some time to master. 

When you are thinking about formatting, it is imperative that you understand that different e-mail programs (such as Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc…) will display your messages differently. Additionally, people have custom settings on their mail programs and PC monitors which can affect the way your messages appear. This means that you need to try and overcome the differences as much as you can. 

The good news is that there are some proven tricks to creating well formatted messages which can be seen well on nearly every e-mail program. They are:

Use a Quality Text Editor - While everyone seems to love using Microsoft Word, it is not the right tool to use when you are formatting e-mail messages! MS Word simply will not give you a good message free of formatting errors. In fact, it will generally add junk entries into your message that you are trying to avoid.

Windows comes with two free text editing programs called WordPad and NotePad. Both of these programs make decent text editors. Additionally, you can download some free text editors online. My favorite is NoteTab Pro from www.notetab.com

Use a Fixed Line Length of 65 Characters and a Fixed-Width Font - In order to prevent your text from wrapping weird it is important for you to use a fixed character line length of no more than 65 characters. To accomplish this, use a hard return (hit Enter) where you want the end of your lines to be. 

Additionally, choose a fixed width font such as Courier. A fixed-width font will use the same space to display each character rather than varying it and will make your messages appear much better for your reader; regardless of what e-mail client software they are using.

Always Check Spelling, Grammar, and Proofread - While everyone is human and we all make mistakes from time to time, it is important to always take a bit of time to check your spelling, grammar and proofread anything you will be sending out to your customers. Mistakes make you appear unprofessional and should be minimized as much as possible. 

If it is at all possible ask someone else to proofread your messages before you send them out to your list. 

When a mistake is found before you send out a message, you will be happy you took the extra time and made the extra effort!

Keep Your Paragraphs Short - E-mail messages with long paragraphs or run-on sentences are hard to read. The solution is to keep your paragraphs to 4 lines or less. By keeping your paragraphs short, you will leave a lot of "white space" on the page and help your readers to have an easier time reading what you have written to them. 

Test a Variety of E-mail Clients for Formatting - If you are able to, it is always a good idea to send yourself your messages and check the message formatting in Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo, and Hotmail. (These are the most common e-mail clients used today.) You can download free clients and set up free e-mail accounts at:

• Eudora -- free versions at http://www.eudora.com
• Outlook -- paid version at http://www.microsoft.com
• Outlook Express -- free version at http://www.microsoft.com
• Hotmail -- free account at http://www.hotmail.com
• Yahoo! -- free account at http://mail.yahoo.com

The must have tools for managing your e-mail promotional campaigns

While most e-mail clients are fine for your personal e-mail mailing lists, there comes a time when your opt-in list will be too large to easily manage like a personal list. At this point you will want to invest in an e-mail management tool which can better meet your business needs. 

A professional e-mail management tool can automatically handle all of your "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests. In addition, it can send messages to your entire list with a simple click of your mouse, automatically deliver your electronic information products, deal with "bounce back" messages, and give you the ability to use an auto-responder to follow-up with your clients automatically.

Final thoughts from Jeff Staniforth to You

To market successfully through e-mail, you simply need to have a well written message which has a catchy subject line that entices your reader to open-up your message and read it. Your primary goal is to invite your reader to open your message, through the use of a good subject line. Your second goal to get your reader to read your message and consider clicking on your affiliate link based on your personal recommendation and meaningful message asking them to do so. Through a well proofread message with proper formatting, you can help to show your reader that you are a professional and take your recommendations seriously. By accomplishing these goals your income potential will soar beyond your wildest dreams.

To your e-mail marketing success!
 

Affiliate Command Center 30/116 Shirley Rd
Wollstonecraft NSW 2065
Sydney, Australia
Ph: 612-9460-8098