According to a survey by Doubleclick, the “average” consumer receives 308 e-mails each week. Of these, 62% (191) are considered to be spam. Most of these e-mails will be deleted unread.
So, if you’re one of the many internet marketers using e-mail to promote a product, service or opportunity, how will you ensure that your e-mail messages get opened? What can you do to keep your prospect’s finger off the delete key?
The answer is provided by the same survey and may surprise you initially. According to Doubleclick’s survey, 63% of consumers base their decision on whether to read or delete an e-mail based upon the information in the “from” field. Simply put, most people check to see who sent the e-mail before they decide to open it or not.
Think about it – isn’t that what you do? Don’t you generally tend to read e-mails from people you know and trust in preference to others?
So how, exactly, do you first become known to and then become trusted by your prospects? Certainly this is something that’s easier said than done – but it can be done and it’s well worth the effort.
First of all don’t spam. You will become known to your prospect -but for all the wrong reasons. Your e-mail messages will be deleted unread and you may lose your ISP account.
Use permission e-mailing. Build a list of opt-in e-mail subscribers. Use a sign up form on every page of your website. Use a special “gateway” page where people can join your list. Give away free e-books, reports, white papers etc. as an incentive to join your list.
Provide your subscribers with useful information. Don’t bombard them with a daily hard sell and don’t send them information or offers unrelated to the original topic in which they expressed an interest.
Intersperse your information with relevant offers which they may be interested in.
It’s that simple. Build your opt-in list and provide your subscribers with real and valuable information. Yes – it takes time and effort, two commodities which many internet “marketers” seem reluctant to invest – but the results are worth it.
A lot of us want to have more faith and get closer to God. The question is how do we do this? Maybe we should, strip away our inhibitions, unlock our imaginations, and send an imaginary e-mail to God.
Maybe you could send God an imaginary e-mail in the form of a prayer. After all, God is always interested in hearing our prayers, isn’t he? It is not the type of thing that you have to worry about him opting into. God is always listening.
How would we start? Perhaps the subject line could read, “Dear God hear my prayer.” No I am afraid that would be too long. How about, “Prayer to God” That might do the trick nicely and we would have no fear of spamming the recipient.
I think it is best to leave any request for help to the body of the text. What would you like to ask for? Good health is often a way to go, but I think you need to get more personal and specific then that.
How about telling God that you are tired of patching yourself together with temporary quick fixes to control your weaknesses like smoking, eating, or drinking too much? That should get Gods attention, don’t you think?
I wonder what God would say in an answer to us? Maybe he would tell us to stop trying to patch ourselves together and find more faith so that we could be strong enough to overcome our weaknesses with his help. Maybe we could use our imaginations to develop our own personal faith patch to replace all those other temporary patches and help us deal with our problems. Maybe we could use our faith.
You don’t have to worry about the address or click on the send button in this imaginary e-mail. I believe that God is always interested in hearing our prayers no matter what form they take.
Are you ready to send a message of faith to God?
You don’t have to worry about sending this e-mail to the wrong address because God is always with us and has a universal address. You don’t even have to type out this e-mail on your word processor. You can just think it.
Whatever you do, try and rely on your faith in God to help you overcome your weaknesses. Stop trying to patch yourself together. Try and find more faith so that you can learn to cope with your personal problems and the troubles of our time like terrorism and natural disasters.
Don’t forget to leave your personal signature in your e-mail to God. It’s not that he doesn’t know who you are; it is just that he may be waiting to hear that you are becoming a Person of Faith. It might help for you to mention this in your signiture block.
An example could read something like this:
Your name:
Statement that you are becoming a Person of Faith
Statement that you believe in God
Your e-mail address (unnecessary)
Your telephone number (unnecessary)
God knows where to find you.
Are you ready to stop patching yourself together?
Are you ready to become a Person of Faith?
