There is, however, a very boring aspect in email marketing: preparing your emails for your autoresponder software.

Formatting your emails is a 3-step process:

1. Re-format your source text so that the lines are no longer than 50 to 60 characters per line. Doing this, you get better readability and thus more people will actually read it till the end.
2. Next you must create 2 different versions of your message, 1 being plain text, and the other one being in HTML format.
3. Finally you have to search for each URL in your source text and turn it into an HTML hyperlink for your HTML email.

Now, keep reading, as you’ll certainly like what you are about to read!

For me, this is probably the most boring task in my daily work. That is of course the reason why I’m outsourcing it now.

It’s also the reason why I asked my programmer to create a tool for me and my assistant that helps making email formatting fast and easy.

Knowing that you are likely to have to do the same boring tasks, I’m giving the email formatting tool to the public, so that you and your staff can use it too.

Whenever you have a series of messages to format for your autoresponder, just click to my free email formatting tool, and it will help you do the job.

These are the features:

1. Formatting short lines for easy reading.
2. Creating 2 versions for text and HTML email.
3. Creating the correct source code for your HMTL hyperlinks automatically.

If you’re an affiliate marketer, you will be happy to see that it keeps your affiliate links intact.

Here’s how to use it, it’s so easy, your dog could do it in 3 simple steps:

1. At the top, you will find a box where you paste your original text.
2. Then you click the button ”Click Here to Format Your Email’.
3. Like magic and at the blink of an eye, your email is now formatted and ready to paste into your autoresponder without requiring any tedious work from you! Two text fields are now filled with your nicely formatted text and HTML email.

Check it out for yourself at http://www.InternetBusinessMastermind.com/email-formatting.

The first step in the process is to develop a newsletter or other email communication with them. It does not matter what you call it. Rather, it matters what is in it. Here are some examples of quality content to provide to your readers.

• Provide Informational Articles.

Your clients want to read something helpful to them. They want to read something that teaches them something. For example, let’s say you are selling an informational product on acne. In your email message to your readers, you write about the causes of acne. This provides them with some type of information.

• Make your subject line effective.

A common problem that many people have when using any form of email marketing is that they just do not get their readers to open up the email. How can you do well if the reader is not even reading what you have to offer? Use your subject line as a tool. In the above example, the subject line could be, “what causes acne and what you can do about it now.”

• Make your email personal.

If you have ever opened up an email and read it knowing that they were just selling something, chances are good the information with was a simple made up, canned response. That’s boring and actually worthless. Use the reader’s names. Be sure to write to them, not to academics. Be personal, yet professional at the same time.

• Don’t overdo it with graphics.

Another problem with email marketing like this is that people go overboard with graphics. You have seconds to impress your reader and get them to actually read the email you have sent. If you have so many graphics within it that it takes forever to load, they will close the email and move on long before actually seeing what you were going to talk about.

• Tell them what to do.

Perhaps the most important aspect of any email used like this is that it has to provide your readers with a way of reacting to what you have sent. Tell them what to do or what they can do to learn more. Give them the link to follow that takes them to the answers to their questions. For example, in the above example, after detailing all of the causes of acne, follow up with a link that takes the individual to your acne cure website. The link may read, “Finally, there is help for any of these acne causes.”

That’s all it takes to get the email going. An effective campaign does get people back to your website. In fact, internet marketing can work in many ways to gain you resources including higher sales potential. Take the time to put internet marketing in place and you will see traffic to your website come in from a variety of sources. You are likely to see your sales go up as long as you have provided your readers with the helpful tools and resources they need to make wise decisions.

If you are not sure if it can work for you, consider traditional sales mechanisms. You could pay a heavily trafficked website for an ad in the thousands of dollars range and hope to get enough readers back to your website. Or, you can invest your time, not your money, in getting quality traffic that is already interested in you!

Now that you have gone through all of this work in step 1 and 2, you still do not have a profit in hand.

Why not?

Because the step that will generate the actual sales and profit is the third and final step in your internet marketing plan.

You’ve arrived at the most important step in our strategy – you’re finally going to send out your email marketing message.

Here’s your internet marketing strategy in a nutshell:

1. Potential customers find you, your products or services on the web.
2. They allow you to contact them and send them emails.
3. You provide them with information they can use and benefit from, through email, and keep your business in front of them all the time. (Today’s topic.)

Now, you will take the information and resources that you have worked so hard to develop and make them into something that’s going to turn a profit for you.

Keep in mind that while this process may seem like it is long and has a lot of work to it,

• you are going to automate much of it,
• and secondly, you are going to do all three things at one time.

This way, you are likely to start making money from internet marketing right from the beginning of starting the process.

Your Email Marketing Plan

As part of the process of using the permissions given to you by those who have visited your website, you will need an email marketing plan.

The plan is quite specific. You need to send emails to those who are on your list that allow them to gain something and learn something.

You’re plan should lay out a series of emails covering interesting topics for your readers. For example you could plan to send out 1 email per week and write down several topics to cover a few weeks in advance.

In this form of internet marketing, you are attracting people to your website by

1. Telling them something important. They think, “Hey, this is great. This is just what I need.”
2. They then head over to your website from the link posted in the email.
3. They can then make a purchase from you or do what you wish for them to do.

To make sure this happens, you need to send emails are well received and that have the best information they can offer to the reader. This way, they are most likely to visit your website.

Still unsure of what you can do with your emails? Here are a few ideas to work with.

What To Send In Your Marketing Emails

• Share information on the topic related to your website, your products and services.
• Share a good book, informational product or other item that in some way relates to your business indirectly.
• Share live event information. Perhaps you are doing an educational seminar or a web cast, and want to invite your readers to come to your website to attend.
• Perhaps you are running a sale and you wish to provide your readers with information regarding it.
• Perhaps you are providing some recorded trainings and want to share the details with your list.
• Encourage them to send you feedback and questions.
• Answer questions you receive in future emails to your list.

Internet marketing is only as successful as you make it.

Therefore, if you invest a little time in it, especially in writing these emails, chances are good you will get good profits from it. Take your time to produce a quality, highly effective email that is sent to your readers.

That’s it for today’s article. Tomorrow you’ll discover the 5 most critical guidelines for successful emails.

Let’s recap the 3 step strategy we outlined in the last article:

• Potential customers find you, your products or services on the web.

• They allow you to contact them. (Today’s topic.)

• You provide them with information they can use and benefit from, through email, and keep your business in front of them all the time.

Your web site visitors and potential customers allow you to contact them and to market to them.

The next step in our internet marketing strategy is to get people to let you talk to them. With the advent of laws regarding spam and other inappropriate means of communication, it has become very important for any Business owner to be sure to stay on the good side of the law.

As a Business owner, you need to have the permission of a consumer, client or website visitors to send them any form of communication.

Why you should do this, you may be asking. As part of the process of developing a successful Internet marketing business, you need to get your product or service in front of the client.

As you will see in Part 3 of the internet marketing strategy, this is the key to your success in selling.

There are many ways that this can be done. The bottom line is that it has to be done.

You want those that find you on the web to come to your website and a lead capture page. This way, you are able to get their permission to send them more information.

There are many lead capture tools available to help you to accomplish this. You can also create your own, and not something that is difficult to do on your own, even if you are not a techie.

What happens is simple:

• Individuals find your information on the web.

• They follow it to your website’s lead capture page.

• They sign up when they arrive there.

• You have a lead to sell to, market to or otherwise use.

Now, you can advertise to them. Mission accomplished!

Tomorrow we’re getting to the meat of the series: What information to send to them and how to turn them into customers.

What I learned from talks with fellow entrepreneurs is that many business people who’ve had a business web site for years still have no clue on how to make it successful.

They don’t have much visitors; and the few who come to their web site don’t turn into customers. A visitor shows up, clicks, leaves, and is never seen again.

This is not what you want, right?

Successfully promoting your web site is neither hard to do nor is it a hidden secret nor is it expensive.

In the upcoming months I will show you dozens of strategies you can use to get targeted traffic to your business web site.

• What makes the difference between a successful web site promotion and a failure?
• What if you had a simple plan, a guiding principle, to promote your web site from zero to hero?

Having A Successful Website Does Not Happen By Accident.

Instead it is something that you can plan and then achieve easily step by step.

You’re guaranteed to turn your site into an internet marketing success if you commit to the 5 Pillars Of Web Site Promotion and do a few simple steps on a daily basis.

How To Build A Solid Foundation For Your Marketing Plan.

Just like building a house, building a successful web site requires a strong and solid foundation. Your success cannot be built on something ethereal, you want to build a house to last.

So before taking any promotional action you need to be clear about the overall goal or your web site.

Read again: do not take any action unless your 100% clear about your site’s goal and your targeted visitors.

Don’t take this lightly. It sounds so obvious and simple that most people rush over it and never really think about it.

But you should.

I’ve had dozens of consultations with business owners who ignored that advice. These are the people that say internet marketing doesn’t work.

And they are right.

If you put up random web sites without a goal and a plan you set yourself up for failure. But that’s true in any area in life, isn’t it? Taking action without a plan and a goal just doesn’t yield much.

Here’s your chance to get it right. Print this article out and then write down the answer to these questions:

1. Who exactly is your ideal visitor? Where do you find these people online? At first you might find it hard to be precise about that. You may be afraid to leave people out and reduce your chance. Actually your chances of success will increase if you narrow your target.
2. What do you want your visitors to do once they come to your site? What is the primary goal of your web site? Sure, you do not want to leave them for good. But what do you want? And how do you make them do what you want them to do?

The answers to that will be your guiding principle whenever you’re not sure what to do next and what to focus on.

It sounds more complicated than it is.

But you’ll never figure it out unless you write down your goals and start taking the appropriate actions.

Once you know your goals and your ideal visitor you can implement a step by step internet marketing plan.

The 5 pillars of web site promotion represent 5 topics you should use on a daily basis to make your site successful.

Taking little steps each day will be much more profitable than doing a huge and expensive marketing blast in one week and then do nothing for the next 12 months.

Continuity builds success.

That’s why you rather do 15 minutes a day. The little actions you take will build up like compounded interest in your bank account.

So What Are The ’5 Pillars Of Web Site Promotion’?

At first glance it might seem a lot – but if you take it one step at a time all will come easy and natural to you. Here you go:

The first pillar of web site promotion: Getting back links to your site. That’s really important. The more back links you can get to your site, the better. Ideally try to get links from sites that match your site in topic. So if you have an internet marketing site, you don’t want too have all your links coming from sites about golf or dog grooming.

Why?

1. Visitors from a related site are more likely to click through to you.
2. Search engines like Google will give more weight to that link if the site’s topic matches yours.

What else do we have for your ‘promotional consideration’?

The second pillar of web site promotion: Email Marketing. I hate to break it to you, but let’s face an ugly truth here: Unless you capture their email address 99 from 100 visitors leave your site for good.

They did not buy, and they will never come back.

The way to turn this around is email marketing. Get your visitors email and permission to email them with marketing messages.

Here are a few benefits of capturing your visitor’s email:

• You can send out promotions for your own products and services to increase sales.
• You can send out promotions for affiliate programs and earn commissions.
• You can point your your readers back to your site and thus create repeat visits.

Now if you manage to drive new visitors to your site for free, you’d have a killer marketing strategy funneling your free traffic into your email promotions. Getting free web site visitor’s is what the next pillar is about.

The third pillar of web site promotion: Search Engine Optimization. 85% of all visitors arrive at your site through a search engine. So they did a search, for example with Google. Your site came up at the search engine results page (SERP) and the visitor clicked through.

The more often your site is at the top of search engine results pages, the more free traffic you get.

That’s why you should optimize your site for the search engines. The process is called ‘search engine optimization’. In short it means that you optimize your site in a way that makes it relevant for specific search terms people might use. Let’s say your site is about ‘the 5 pillars of web site promotion’. When someone enters that term in a search, then you would want to see your site at the top of the search engine results.

About the 5pillars … ah, well, it’s not something people are likely to search for … I know that.

You can learn more about search engine optimization in this blog’s category ‘search marketing’. Now let’s see how to make humans and search engine robots fall in love with your site, it’s pillar #4:

The fourth pillar of web site promotion: The amount and attractiveness of content on your web site. Search engines as well as visitors love regularly updated and content rich web sites.

After all: why would someone come to your site twice if there’s noting new to discover. On the internet we’ve become information junkies.

• People browsing the net are looking for information.
• They are looking for sites that provide value.
• They are craving new content all the time.

That’s why it’s easy to put your competition to dust.

Most of them treat their web site like a business brochure that is rarely updated. Take advantage and post fresh and useful content. Your visitors and the search engines will love it, come back often and refer your site.

The fifth pillar of web site promotion: Promoting your web site with paid advertising. This is the fastest way to get targeted visitors to your site: placing ads on other web sites and offline in print magazines and news papers.

The crucial point of course is that it costs money to place an ad. Unless you already have a marketing budget you should start to set one up. Or- if you’re dead broke – your paid marketing will have to wait till you made some money. It is however an area not to be neglected.

There’s no other means of online marketing where you have that much control about who gets exposed to your promotion.

But since it’s costly: better make sure your web site converts visitors to buyers before running a campaign. When running an ad campaign keep track of cost and be sure to stop it if it generates a loss.

So those are the 5 pillars.

Remember our building analogy?

There’s a final piece missing to build your house – the roof of your successful web site promo.

Let’s Top Your Success – With A Roof

The final piece of your marketing plan is ‘Measure Your Success’!

You do not want to waste your time and effort and money on any activity that doesn’t pay off. So measure what works and what doesn’t. Then expand what works and discontinue what doesn’t.

How do you do it?

Well, first of all get yourself a software to track what visitors are doing on your site. The easiest way to go is Google analytics.

Technically it’s a tiny piece of text that will be incorporated in all your pages. Then the analytics software will track what happens on your site.

A site analytics tool will show you useful information like:

• how many visitors come to your site
• what pages do they look at
• how long do they stay
• where do they leave
• etc. etc.

So there you have it, the foundation, the 5 pillars and the roof.

That Finishes Our Picture…

Here You Have It, The Step By Step Plan For Successful Web Site Promotion.

1. Before you start promoting decide who should come to your site and what action you want your visitor to take.

2. Work on improving all 5 pillars for your site. You could for example invest 15 to 30 minutes each day on 1 of the pillars. If you follow through from Monday to Friday you’ll be amazed. You’ll see your traffic grow and people coming back to your site again and again. Example:

1. Monday: 30 minutes link building.
2. Tuesday: 30 minutes to improve your email marketing.
3. Wednesday: 30 minutes to SEO one page on one of your sites.
4. Thursday: 30 minutes to add fresh content to one of your sites.
5. Friday: 30 minutes to place an ad through PPC, E-zines, or print advertising.

3. While building your traffic and working on the 5 pillars, monitor what’s happening on your site. Put more time, energy and money in promotions that produce results. Stop promotions that do not produce results.

Remember: Continuity Builds Success! Follow through with such an easy plan on a day by day basis and you simply can’t fail.

You’re guaranteed to see your traffic jump through the roof.