WOW… tough crowd!Email Marketing when done properly is EASY to optin and optout of and that is mandatory in most reputable email marketing platforms. There is an optout at the bottom of every email sent – whitelisting and meeting any CanSpam regulations requires it… if you are recieving emails that don’t show that / offer that/ it causes me to wonder where and what you signed up for? it is not a reputable business email if it is hard to optout of.

On the other side of that coin, we have said for years now at our seminar and training events that we would happily pay to send you an email because so many others would not!

I think the bottom line here, is don’t sign up for what you don’t want… and if you think you want something do your research before signing up by right clicking on your browser and seeing if a legitimate email management tool is being used to gather email address… if you don’t know what those are here are a few for you:

Aweber
MailChip
iContact
Benchmark

if your doing any amount of decent business online, your collecting email optins and you know about email management systems, how they work and which ones get good whitelisting…. AND which ones give the best metrics to you as a user!

Social networking is excellent yes – email marketing converts more still and at higher $$ dollars so be informed and don’t let your personal bias get in the way of fact.

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@Michael Torkildsenis absolutely spot on! Regardless of the medium be it facebook, twitter or whatever else… People who think un-targeted traffic or connections count more than results like conversions are unfortunately a dime a dozen and sorely mistaken – they are also probably just out of school and don’t know what they don’t know yet there is innocence in that BUT it will cost you money for their ego’s and learning curve… The only true measure of anyone or anything is results, often harsh yet always fair… more achievable with experience. Conversions are a good results Traffic is just traffic without them not much intrinsic value.The time you spend / waste on dealing with 50 potential leads that are NOT convert-able is the exact same amount of time you could spent on 1 or 2 leads that convert into $$$ and a lifetime of customer value + referrals… how do you want to spend your time, money and energy? With 50 tire kickers that go nowhere or with 1 or 2 leads that WANT what you offer?

So given that you want leads that convert not just traffic for traffics sake…

1) Ask your friends to send a personal invite out to their friends – make it easy for them by doing the copywriting for them that is easy for them to personalize and feel good about sending out… give them a followup or 3 over a 3 week period – it takes on average 7 online experiences to make a decision to purchase fyi. This is affiliate marketing 101 with a little twist.

2) Take number 1 and customize it for your current customers that HAVE purchased previously and give them an incentive … perhaps you can automate the messages they share by auto inserting their previous purchases and the value they won in that decision… little bit of db scripting to produce that goes a LONG way. This is how loyalty card companies exist and profit… and they do!

3) Paid advertising that promotes acknowledgement of what your searchers WANT not what you are SELLING has proven to keep costs down and profits up… get a good researcher to give you that info and then use it in your sponsored advertising.

4) Content, Content, Content brings Traffic, Traffic, Traffic… done correctly you achieve highly convertible traffic with LOW cost and HIGH returns!

Look at what is being done offline in the brick and mortar world and then see how that converts to online which means one person sitting alone in front of their computer having a momentary intimate exchange with whatever you are portraying yourself to be… because ultimately – thats the deal, thats all it is… one buyer, one moment, one computer to choose you or not to choose you – ughh like dating!

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