Using Email Marketing to promote your Affiliate Products

Email marketing can be one of the most effective methods to promote affiliate products, IF * You've already built an opt-in email list, and * You've already established your credibility with your subscribers In fact, I'm such a big believer in promoting affiliate products through e-mail that I've written and tested many different e-mail campaigns over the past few years. The key to successful e-mail content is to imagine that you are writing the letter to one friend, rather than a large group of customers who are all strangers to you. Writing with a single person in mind will help you avoid writing that's too stiff and formal, and make sure your claims are not overstated. Here are seven simple steps to write effective content for e-mail promotions : 1. Keep it personal: Write your letter as though you were sending it to a close personal friend. This is one of the best ways to guarantee that you avoid any exaggeration or hype that will scare away interested potential customers. 2. Tell them "Why": If you believe that you’re recommending a good product that your readers will benefit from, tell them. Be specific about why you think it’s such a great product and how they stand to benefit from checking it out! 3. Be honest and real: If you’ve had personal experience with the product, then let your customers and subscribers know how you’ve personally benefited from it. Results speak for themselves. 4. Be knowledgeable: If you don’t have personal experience using the product, familiarize yourself with it by taking a few minutes to read the product information. Think about how it will benefit your customers and subscribers, and express this in your letter. 5. Keep it short: An effective e-mail shouldn’t be any more than a page and a half. Remember that your job is to get the reader to click through your affiliate link to the product information page with full details. 6. Keep it simple: Don't fall into the trap of trying to fill your letter with big words and complicated sentences to make it sound more 'official'. That kind of language is a surefire way to turn people off. Think about what you want to say in your letter, then imagine that you're sitting down with a friend and telling them these things in a casual conversation. That's the tone you want to capture. 7. Test it! Before you e-mail the letter to your entire opt-in e-mail list, consider e-mailing it to a test group to gauge the response. If the results aren't what you hoped, you can always go back and 'tweak' it before you send it out to everyone. New to email marketing ? Or, your email marketing effort isn't really paying you well? Perhaps you ought to take a look at our Email Secrets to discover how the professionals are doing it !