Essential Elements of Email Swipes and How to Put Them to Work for You
When you promote affiliate products, in many cases the person actually selling the product is going to provide you with the text you can simply copy and paste into your email. But sooner or later you probably are going to have to create some emails yourself. And even if you don’t, it’s important that you understand why the emails you send out are structured the way they are.
As an affiliate marketer, you are sending an email to the people on your list because you want them to do something: In most cases, purchase your products.
Given the quantity of emails most people receive, it is unlikely that your recipients are going to be willing to spend much time reading all the way to the end of your email. In fact, in most cases you will be lucky if they open it at all.
Getting to the Point
In a sales letter, for example, you have the luxury of several pages to build excitement for your product.
In contrast, with a print ad you have only a moment to use images and tag lines to grab your viewer’s attention. A marketing email falls somewhere in between.
Like a sales letter, the purpose of your marketing email is to drive your reader toward a Call to Action … or the CTA. In other words what it is you want them to do. Unlike a sales letter, you don’t have much time to get them there before their attention wanes. As a result, in many ways a marketing email is like an abbreviated sales letter.
Elements of an Email Swipe
The elements of a sales letter and marketing email are the same:
- Greeting
- Presenting a Problem
- Offering Your Product as a Solution
- Listing Your Product’s Benefits
- Special Offers and Bonuses
- Call to Action
- Link to Product Web Page
The greeting should be simple and straight-forward. If your target audience is a specific group, feel free to reference the group in your greeting:
Dear Internet Marketer:
Your autoresponder program will let you automatically include your recipient’s first name in the greeting, such as:
To: Alice Walker
or
Dear Alice,
If your autoresponder offers this option, use it because it makes the email more personal.
Keep It Simple
You also want to always make sure the content of your email is interesting and on point. Don’t digress or swerve off onto other subjects. Remember that your recipient is receiving dozens, even hundreds of emails per day and they probably are only going to send a few moments on yours, if they open it at all.
Grab their attention early … starting with the subject line … then set up the problem that is relevant to your affiliate product niche and keep the email moving briskly toward the CTA. Your goal is to grab their attention and hold onto it throughout the body of the email so they will keep reading.
In most cases, the email should be no more than one page or a page and a half at most. Try to limit your content to less than a dozen paragraphs, if possible.
So know you know how to create an effective promotional email that is going to convert your customers to buy the affiliate products you are promoting.
Knowing how to effectively use email swipes to keep pushing your customers past the buying point is critical to your success. If you’d like to have access to even more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready Internet marketing prospects each month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.
About the Author Jim Keys
Currently, I am working with other entrepreneurs and new business startups on challenges they encounter by sharing my experience and knowledge, and through coaching and mentoring when opportunities arise. I enjoy helping others fine-tune their operations and succeed in business and life.