Email Marketing Riches

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Chapter One: Finding the Emails
The first step towards effective email marketing is obvious yet difficult for many: actually finding the emails to market to. Doing this step wrong could not only result in not achieving any results in terms of sales, but may even land you in jail. This is because there has been a recent crackdown by the Feds on what is known as `spam', which is basically unsolicited email advertising. It can also refer to unwanted advertising on message boards and classified ads, though it's usually the email variety that gets people in trouble.

To get these emails, spammers use a variety of methods including: simply guessing an email address, using a harvesting `bot to scour Usenet, message boards, social networking sites and other types of websites for email addresses, phising, (the process of getting information by making the victim think they are visiting a legitimate website) and buying bulk email lists. Once they get their hands on hundreds, sometimes even thousands of email addresses, they start sending out their advertising. Most of the time these advertisements are poorly written and have the characteristic look of spam. Others are more deceptive, and may even use phising techniques to get you to enter in important information such as credit card numbers, bank accounts and social security numbers.

In terms of what is advertised, they can be an `innocent' affiliate advertisement to something more sinister, like the infamous Nigerian email scams. Of course, there is a possibility that people could become victimized by legitimate email marketing techniques, but it is usually far less common. You should desire to be on the legitimate side. Besides, when you send advertisements on people who actually don't mind receiving them, you have less of a chance of your email getting put in the `bulk folder' used by most email providers to help eliminate spam.

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Figure 1: An example of a spam email

So, how do you go about legitimately building an email list? You must first create something that can serve as a `draw' for your potential subscriber. Most people have no problems giving away their email address if they are going to receive something in return. Affiliate marketers who do not have much money make free e-books or newsletters the incentive to subscribe. Companies and/or affiliate marketers with more money can experiment with more elaborate draws, such as sweepstakes entries or giving away a `free' prize. Some do a combination. What should you do? It depends on your situation. If you're promoting a business, you can offer free coupons as an incentive to subscribe. If you're simply an affiliate marketer, you should consider promoting information.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. The thought of promoting information sounds like it's a lot of work. In truth, it is, though there are ways to avoid doing the work yourself. Ghostwriters, who you can find through a general Google search or sites like Elance, can write e-books for you for a few hundred dollars. You can also see if you can find someone willing to volunteer their writing services in exchange for being able to promote their links in your book or on your site. Freelance writing boards are the place to go to post these types of volunteer jobs. The other option is to try to write the e-book yourself.

How do you go about writing an e-book yourself? The first step is to brainstorm. Think about what you know. General information can work, though the more specific your ebook is the more likely it will get read all the way through. Once you get a topic in mind, you will want to consider writing an outline to help assist you in the writing process.

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Although outlines can be somewhat time-consuming, in the long run you'll be glad to have them because they let you know what direction you're going when you start your writing. They don't have to be elaborate.. just stating what you want to talk about in each chapter could be a good enough outline. Keep in mind that the more detailed your outline is, the less likely you'll get writer's block once your e-book is started. The outline format that is most popular in academia is shown below:

I.

Topic One A. Sub-topic One 1) Supporting point one a. sub-point one b. sub-point two 2) Supporting point two a. sub-point one b. sub-point two B. Sub-topic One 1) Supporting point one a. sub-point one b. sub-point two 2) Supporting point two a. sub-point one b. sub-point two Topic Two A. Sub-topic One 1) Supporting point one a. sub-point one b. sub-point two 2) Supporting point two a. sub-point one b. sub-point two B. Sub-topic One 1) Supporting point one a. sub-point one b. sub-point two 2) Supporting point two a. sub-point one b. sub-point two Topic Three A. Sub-topic One 1) Supporting point one a. sub-point one b. sub-point two 2) Supporting point two a. sub-point one

II.

III.

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