The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
2
The content of this book is for information only. Readers must make their own evaluation of the suitability of the ideas presented. Readers must also make their own evaluation of any recommendations of products and services by personally contacting the suppliers or advertisers and making decisions based on the information that they provide.
This report may be used on this understanding and, consequently, the reader accepts that AKHMediagroup cannot be held responsible in any way for the outcome of any decisions made.
Although great care has been taken in the compilation and preparation of this report to ensure the accuracy of the information made available, AKHMediagroup cannot in any circumstances accept responsibility for errors or omissions, or for the results of decisions taken. The information given is never legal advice and it is not warranted or guaranteed. Readers should not take any action based on information in this report until they have considered the source documents and any further documents to which they refer. If legal advice is required, a lawyer or accountant should be consulted.
Any reference or income examples are exceptional results which do not apply to the average person and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in part or in full, in any form whatsoever. Any unauthorised copying or distribution will constitute an infringement of copyright.
AKHMediagroup: Tel US 1-210 745 1950 / Tel UK 0117 370 6178 / Fax UK 0117 370 6164
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
4
There’s Never Been a Better Time…
It’s well over a decade since safelists and viral mailers took the Internet Marketing scene by storm. Once considered an essential weapon in every Internet marketer’s arsenal, they’re now viewed by many as a slightly embarrassing footnote.
Well, that’s their loss.
Because, despite their critics, the email exchange business model is alive and well. In fact I would go so far as to say that there’s never been a better time to add these programs to your marketing mix.
Viral mailers, in particular, have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years and have developed a level of sophistication that makes them more effective than ever before.
And, because many of the casual online marketers (by which I mean the time-wasters that treat online business as a hobby, rather than a serious venture) have moved on to other less reputable biz-ops, the viral mailer community has become more advanced and forward-thinking than you might imagine.
The fact is, if you use them correctly, viral mailers work!
Here are four reasons why you should ignore the naysayers and invest a small amount of time into learning how to use viral mailers effectively:
You get email access to the other members.
Yes, I know that much is obvious, but don’t take for granted the power that gives you. Traffic exchanges, for example, only allow you to show your website to those members that take the time to surf. In contrast, viral mailers allow you to reach people while they’re doing what everybody does, usually multiple times a day… checking emails.
Viral mailers give you a route directly into every member’s inbox and that provides an incredibly powerful opportunity.
It’s easy to test multiple campaigns.
There’s Never Been a Better Time…
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
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Setting up new splash pages and Wordpress sites is very time-consuming. But because viral mailers, by their very nature, limit you to the small amount of text you can fit into an email, it’s easy to trial and split-test multiple campaigns in a very short space of time. We’ll discuss this in more detail very soon.
Most viral mailer users are doing it wrong.
It can’t be denied that most viral mailer members are just throwing any amount of mud at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. If, however, you follow the guidance in this Report and get your viral mailer strategy spot on, it’s really, really easy to stand out and get your emails noticed.
Access to marketing newbies.
Their simplicity, coupled with their low cost of entry (usually free), mean that most viral mailers are populated by total beginners. These people are crying out for someone with some experience to help them out. If your business is about helping other online business owners, in any capacity, viral mailers are absolutely the best place to be.
So, let’s get started.
In this Report we’re going to look at the biggest mistake made by viral mailer users as well as some simple strategies that will make a huge difference to the effectiveness and profitability of your viral mailer campaigns.
And then we’ll close by looking at the #1 secret to viral mailer success.
Resist the urge to flick forward. The final chapter will make the most sense when you’ve consumed everything that comes before it.
So, turn the page, and let’s start digging for gold…
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
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Viral Mailer Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
People don’t join viral mailers to read emails, they join viral mailers to make money.
No surprise then that many members pay little or no attention to the emails they receive from their fellow members.
Don’t be put off by this.
Every type of online advertising, from Facebook ads, to banner advertising, to PPC, is ignored by the majority of users. It doesn’t matter how many people ignore your marketing activities, it only matters how well you communicate your message to the people that do pay attention.
A certain proportion of viral mailer users DO read the emails that they receive and it’s those people that we care about.
But that isn’t the point of this chapter.
The point is that YOU should be making a point of reading the emails that YOU receive.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you some touchy-feely junk about reading emails because it’s the right thing to do, and how you can hardly expect others to read your emails if you don’t read theirs.
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
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Those things are true but they’re still not the reason why you should be paying attention to the emails you receive.
You see, what most people fail to recognise is that the glut of emails they receive every day is really a daily dose of free market research that is loaded with gold nuggets, just waiting to be discovered.
Don’t scoff. Consider…
Discover Killer Subject Lines
Scan your eyes down the list of emails and, when a subject line jumps out at you, pull it out to investigate it in more detail. If the subject line stood out from the crowd there must be something about it that is working really, really well.
Study it. Learn from it.
And then copy the subject line into a swipe file that you can refer to when you’re writing subject lines for your own emails.
Discover Great Email Copy
If the subject line of an email is good, read the content as well. If the email text successfully compels you to click on the link you can also put this one in the category of “something that appears to be working.”
Again, study it. Learn from it.
And then put the email copy into a swipe file to give you ideas for your own email copy.
Notice I said “ideas”. Don’t even think about stealing other people’s emails and using them verbatim, you lazy cretin.
Find the Gaps
You’ve probably noticed the trend that develops when a new, popular program is launched; suddenly the mailer is flooded with messages all promoting the same thing.
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
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Pushing what everyone else is pushing and hoping that your affiliate link is the one that gets noticed is less like a business strategy and more akin to buying a lottery ticket.
By keeping an eye on what other people are promoting you can avoid wasted time attempting to feature the same products and services as everyone else.
And, if you’re really smart, you’ll find the gaps – the promotional ideas and business opportunities that nobody else is featuring. Find those blind spots and you can come up with something to offer that no one else has.
*****
I am, of course, a realist. I’m not suggesting you obsessively study every single email that finds its way to you via a mailer. Who has time for that?
But what you should do is schedule a little bit of time each week to review the emails you’ve received and obtain some valuable intelligence that will improve your campaigns.
VM Secret #2 – Mix It Up
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Viral Mailer Secret #2 – Mix It Up
There’s no such thing as the perfect sales copy.
Thus far, nobody has come up with a combination of words, so perfectly contrived, that 100% of recipients are compelled to make the purchase.
The best we can do, as intelligent marketers, is to split-test our copy and attempt to incrementally increase our results.
But mailer campaigns are a little different.
You see, with sales copy, you usually only get one shot at convincing the visitor to purchase so you show them your best-performing page and hope for a result. But with mailers… you can continue to email members over a period of days and weeks.
It’s not a one-shot deal.
Look at it like this. Let’s say email subject line A gets a 2% open rate and email subject line B gets a 4% open rate. You might think that the best thing to do is to keep sending email subject line B because it gets double the response of A.
But here’s the thing. A certain proportion of people will NEVER respond to subject line B but WILL respond to subject line A. If you only ever send B, you’re missing a chunk of your audience.
VM Secret #2 – Mix It Up
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In other words, subject line B might be a winner, but that doesn’t mean subject line A is useless. What you should be doing is using BOTH email subject lines and, therefore, maximising your overall response rate.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t split-test; it simply means you have to test in a slightly different way.
Split-Test Formula
Please note that this system is just a suggestion and isn’t a definitive strategy. Feel free to modify the numbers and frequencies as you see fit.
If you’re feeling hardcore you can do the same thing with the email copy. That takes a little more effort but will really maximise your results.
Step 1: Write five different subject lines for your campaign. Step 2: Send a different subject line every day for the next five days and record your results. Step 3: Next week, resend the same five subject lines but in a different order (this is because the day on which you send your mailing will also impact the result). Step 4: Discard the two least effective subject lines and write two new ones. You should now have five subject lines, consisting of your three best-performing subject lines and two new ones. Step 5: Repeat Steps 2-5.
VM Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
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Viral Mailer Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
A mailer is never a substitute for owning your own private mailing list because the one thing a mailer can never provide is the opportunity for you to develop a relationship with your readers.
If a mailer member reads one of your emails, the chances of getting a second email in front of them are depressingly random.
But, if you have subscribers on your private mailing list, you have the opportunity to develop a connection with them that will increase your email open rates and drastically increase your click-throughs.
It’s no exaggeration to say that a warm mailing list can provide you with an email open rate that is hundreds of times greater than that which you can achieve through a mailer.
Which is why your primary goal in using mailers, above all else, is to attract the attention of the members and coax them onto your private mailing list.
I really cannot overstate the value of being able to email the same people, on a consistent basis. By sharing your expertise with your audience and combining this with a healthy dose of personality, you can create a loyal audience that hangs on your every word. If you want to see a great example of this (aside from my own awesome emails, of course), check out the Kickstart Newsletter, produced by Martin Avis. His emails are an odd mix of diary entries and product reviews; they’re quite unlike the vast majority of Internet business
VM Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
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mailing lists out there but they’re incredibly effective and have allowed Martin to build an almost fanatical following. www.kickstartnewsletter.com
How do you get mailer members to make the transition onto your mailing list? The obvious way is to send promotions, via the mailer, that direct people to your lead-capturing squeeze pages.
Yes, I appreciate that your business might be of the affiliate marketing variety and you may be accustomed to simply directing readers to other people’s sales pages. But that’s no excuse for not building your own mailing list.
If you send a prospect directly to an affiliate page that person may or may not make the purchase. But if you get that prospect onto your mailing list FIRST, you have multiple opportunities to convert that prospect into a customer by sending them other related offers in the future.
The fact is that, to a greater or lesser degree, most mailing list owners still engage in affiliate activity. Whatever business model you’ve chosen to pursue, a mailing list is still a valuable asset to have at your disposal.
If you don’t have your own products that you can give away via a lead-capture system you need to put a little effort into creating something worthwhile. But it doesn’t have to be as onerous a task as you might imagine.
A “private label rights” report, reworked and polished, behind a squeeze page you’ve paid someone peanuts to create on fiverr.com, powered by the cheapest Aweber.com account, is a quick and inexpensive way to get a lead-capture system in place.
To put it bluntly, if you’re using a mailer to simply send people to affiliate pages, your business is never going to grow beyond a certain point. Gradually and steadily transferring people from your mailer promotions to your own private mailing list is an investment in the future of a business for which the sky’s the limit.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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Viral Mailer Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
Controversy warning!
What I’m about to say is going to upset some people and is probably going to earn me more than a few angry emails.
But that’s never stopped me before from speaking my mind and it’s not going to stop me now.
So I’m just going to come right out and say it…
The biggest mistake people make when using mailers is using safelists.
No, that isn’t a typo. You didn’t misread that line. I’m actually saying, in a Report about safelists, that you shouldn’t be using safelists.
Actually, if you look back over the last dozen pages, you may notice that I’ve studiously avoided referring to safelists, preferring instead the term “Viral Mailer” or just “Mailer”.
And that’s because, although viral mailers and safelists are built on the same idea, they’re FAR from being equal in terms of the success they can offer you and in their ability to connect you with other members.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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This isn’t controversy for controversy’s sake. If you look closely, there are two glaringly obvious reasons why viral mailers are vastly superior to safelists, and why this outdated business model has given the industry such a poor reputation.
Safelists are easy to abuse.
Safelists tend to have a very open mailing system where everybody can email everybody as often as they like, with little or no restriction. A proportion of the member base will ALWAYS take advantage of this by emailing dozens or even hundreds of times a day, even using software to automate the process. It’s a spammer’s paradise filled with hideous MLM and biz-op promotions, drowning out any worthwhile messages that you try to send.
Viral mailers, on the other hand, limit the frequency and reach of each member’s mailing activity. This prevents abuse of the system and keeps the volume of emails to a reasonable level.
(Most) safelist owners don’t care.
My evidence for this damning statement?
Safelist owners commonly tell their members to open a second email account and use this purely to receive emails from other members.
The implication is clear. This is tantamount to saying, “emails from your fellow safelist members are just a nuisance, so just filter all the incoming messages into a bottomless pit and stay as far away from it as possible.”
If members are actively encouraged not to read emails from other members what purpose does the safelist even have?
Simple. Its purpose is for safelist owners to build their OWN list and everyone else can rot!
They might encourage you not to bother reading emails from other members, but you can be sure that they’ll insist on you receiving all of their admin emails containing their own offers.
And when the safelist crashes under the weight of its own uselessness? Just open a new safelist with a stupid name and start again.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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I added the word “most” to the subheading because there are always exceptions, but they are very few and far between.
Viral mailers, by contrast, are usually designed for the long-term and this means the owners have to do their utmost to ensure members continue to receive and read emails from other members. Double opt-ins are usually a requirement, mailing limits are strictly enforced and some programs will even give out credits in exchange for clicking links in the emails that members send out.
*****
Look, I’m not so naïve as to suggest that all safelist owners are chumps and all viral mailer owners are saints. You’re going to find good and bad in both camps and you need to look for the tell-tale signs that indicate whether a program is worth your time and effort, testing your results to see if your messages are getting through.
But the fact is that you’re vastly more likely to find a productive viral mailer than a productive safelist. So, as controversial as some may consider this recommendation to be, my fourth secret of VM success is to ditch the safelists and stick exclusively to viral mailers.
VM Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
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Viral Mailer Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
This final secret is a complete endgame.
It’s not for everyone but, if you embrace this recommendation, your success with viral mailers is going to be, potentially, hundreds of times greater than that of the average user. Consider…
Q) Which emails sent to viral mailer members get the best open rates and the highest click-through rates?
A) The emails sent by the viral mailer administrator.
Viral mailer members are conditioned to pay special attention to emails from the administrator because they often contain valuable or even essential information. It could be bonus credits, critical information about their account, a reminder that the mailer is available to use, a special upgrade offer…
Whatever it is, the member is more likely to open emails from the administrator than any other email they receive from the mailer.
Owning a viral mailer is a big responsibility and the idea isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But, if you’re even contemplating it, let me encourage you with 5 reasons why being a viral mailer owner is the biggest and best secret to success.
1. Your open and click-through rates are going to go through the roof.
We just mentioned this above but ownership of a viral mailer program, like any membership site, gives you a captive audience.
2. Viral mailers offer great residual profits.
VM Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
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Naturally, you can use your admin privileges to periodically promote other products or services (although be careful not to abuse your access and irritate your members), but income from upgraded memberships alone can provide a very tidy, regular monthly income.
3. You’re building your own private list.
Remember viral mailer secret #3? Instead of wrestling with landing pages and autoresponders, and spending hours labouring over email copy writing, your viral mailer program takes care of all the heavy lifting for you. Every member that joins your viral mailer is automatically added to your private mailing list.
4. Your members help you build your list.
Remember, this is a VIRAL mailer, so called because members are offered credit-based and financial incentives to encourage others to join your site. The more members that join the mailer, the more affiliates you’ll have promoting your site and helping you to build your list.
5. Virtual real estate leverage.
If you’ve ever read any of my reports, articles, blog posts or forum posts about membership sites you’ll know why I recommend this online business model above just about anything else you can think of. A viral mailer, by its very function, is a form of membership site and that means you’re going to have a number of pages on your site that experience very high traffic.
Your log-in page, your members home page, your mailing page, even your “forgot password” page are going to become high traffic pages on which you can either place carefully selected offers of your own, or do deals with other site owners to swap advertising.
*****
Choosing to build and manage your own viral mailer is a big decision and not something I expect you to settle on mere minutes after being introduced to the idea.
But, if you’re even slightly tempted, turn to the next page to discover the fastest and simplest way to become administrator of your own cutting-edge viral mailer.
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
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Viral Mailer Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
If the five preceding secrets can explode your viral mailer marketing success, Viral Mailer Secret X will be like a thermonuclear explosion.
In the previous chapter we looked at the benefits of owning your own viral mailer website, rising above the masses, taking the path that others fear to tread and other hype-tastic clichés.
Owning your own membership site for just about anything is, in my view, an excellent step to take. And a viral mailer is a straightforward and relatively easy introduction into this business model.
But only…
If you find the right software.
The caveat I must add to the preceding “secret” is that, as great as owning your own viral mailer program is, if you set up your website with an inferior script the whole exercise can become a royal pain in the neck.
At best you’ll find that the script limits your opportunities for growth and your attempts to properly monetise your business. At worst your viral mailer system will be a bug-riddled nightmare that drives away members as fast as you can bring them in.
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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So, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to explain why my LFMVM script is the sensible choice for starting your own viral mailer website, especially if you intend to run it as a profit-making business, rather than a slightly nerdy hobby.
A solid, dependable platform
LFMVM, as the name suggests, is built on the popular Launch Formula Marketing (LFM) membership site script. This is significant because it means you don’t have to worry about building your business on a new, untried platform.
Benefiting from years of developments and improvements, LFMVM takes full advantage of everything that has made LFM one of the most reliable and sought after business scripts on the market.
Multiple profit opportunities
There are few things I enjoy more than coming up with creative ways of allowing LFM users to add additional streams of income. To name just a few, LFMVM includes the ability to create…
Upsells
One-time-offers
Login offers
Rotating offers
Affiliate management
Marketing product library
Multiple payment processor integration
Multiple membership levels
One-time or recurring payment functionality
Full suite of mailing features
To develop LFMVM into a world-class viral mailer script we studied the market and included every worthwhile feature we could find. We’ve included elements such as…
Member credit refunds
Advanced scheduling
Anti-cheat measures
Dynamic clicking ratios
Automated monthly bonuses
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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Basically, if you can think of it, it’s probably already included as a standard feature of LFMVM (and if it isn’t, let us know and we’ll seriously consider adding it).
Optional Plugins
If you want to expand your viral mailer still further, there are additional plugins available for purchase that bolt straight onto the standard LFMVM script. These add features such as Twitter marketing integration, tracking and rotator services, promo reward codes, login rewards, and much more.
Training and support
We never leave our customers to fend for themselves. That’s why we have a responsive help desk (answering tickets within 12-24 hours), software training, and an optional installation/upgrade service.
We don’t want you to invest in LFMVM and then leave the script on your hard drive to gather virtual dust. We want you to create a fun, dynamic viral mailer site that you can be proud of, and we’ll help you with whatever you need to get to this point.
Massive member community
Perhaps most significantly we’ve created a private community for LFMVM owners in which you can learn, develop your skills and establish joint venture partnerships.
You’ll have access to monthly teleconferences, our Facebook fan page and our LFMVN Owner’s SKYPE group. We’re a close knit bunch but we love nothing more than welcoming new members and helping them take their first steps to success.
Frankly, I’m only scratching the surface of all the benefits and features LFMVM has to offer. If I’ve whetted your appetite to find out more I’d encourage you to click on the link below to view some examples of the incredible websites other LFMVM owners have created.
http://theviralmailerscript.com
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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That’s all folks!
Whether you’re content to use the Intel in this report to improve your viral mailer results, or you’ve been stoked up over the idea of owning your own viral mailer, I hope you soon come to discover, as I have, that viral mailers, despite their critics, are still a highly relevant and effective marketing medium.
And if you remember nothing else from this report…
Remember to stay away from safelists.
You’ll thank me later.
Robert Puddy
http:/thetrafficexchangescript.com
2
The content of this book is for information only. Readers must make their own evaluation of the suitability of the ideas presented. Readers must also make their own evaluation of any recommendations of products and services by personally contacting the suppliers or advertisers and making decisions based on the information that they provide.
This report may be used on this understanding and, consequently, the reader accepts that AKHMediagroup cannot be held responsible in any way for the outcome of any decisions made.
Although great care has been taken in the compilation and preparation of this report to ensure the accuracy of the information made available, AKHMediagroup cannot in any circumstances accept responsibility for errors or omissions, or for the results of decisions taken. The information given is never legal advice and it is not warranted or guaranteed. Readers should not take any action based on information in this report until they have considered the source documents and any further documents to which they refer. If legal advice is required, a lawyer or accountant should be consulted.
Any reference or income examples are exceptional results which do not apply to the average person and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, in part or in full, in any form whatsoever. Any unauthorised copying or distribution will constitute an infringement of copyright.
AKHMediagroup: Tel US 1-210 745 1950 / Tel UK 0117 370 6178 / Fax UK 0117 370 6164
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
4
There’s Never Been a Better Time…
It’s well over a decade since safelists and viral mailers took the Internet Marketing scene by storm. Once considered an essential weapon in every Internet marketer’s arsenal, they’re now viewed by many as a slightly embarrassing footnote.
Well, that’s their loss.
Because, despite their critics, the email exchange business model is alive and well. In fact I would go so far as to say that there’s never been a better time to add these programs to your marketing mix.
Viral mailers, in particular, have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years and have developed a level of sophistication that makes them more effective than ever before.
And, because many of the casual online marketers (by which I mean the time-wasters that treat online business as a hobby, rather than a serious venture) have moved on to other less reputable biz-ops, the viral mailer community has become more advanced and forward-thinking than you might imagine.
The fact is, if you use them correctly, viral mailers work!
Here are four reasons why you should ignore the naysayers and invest a small amount of time into learning how to use viral mailers effectively:
You get email access to the other members.
Yes, I know that much is obvious, but don’t take for granted the power that gives you. Traffic exchanges, for example, only allow you to show your website to those members that take the time to surf. In contrast, viral mailers allow you to reach people while they’re doing what everybody does, usually multiple times a day… checking emails.
Viral mailers give you a route directly into every member’s inbox and that provides an incredibly powerful opportunity.
It’s easy to test multiple campaigns.
There’s Never Been a Better Time…
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
6
Setting up new splash pages and Wordpress sites is very time-consuming. But because viral mailers, by their very nature, limit you to the small amount of text you can fit into an email, it’s easy to trial and split-test multiple campaigns in a very short space of time. We’ll discuss this in more detail very soon.
Most viral mailer users are doing it wrong.
It can’t be denied that most viral mailer members are just throwing any amount of mud at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. If, however, you follow the guidance in this Report and get your viral mailer strategy spot on, it’s really, really easy to stand out and get your emails noticed.
Access to marketing newbies.
Their simplicity, coupled with their low cost of entry (usually free), mean that most viral mailers are populated by total beginners. These people are crying out for someone with some experience to help them out. If your business is about helping other online business owners, in any capacity, viral mailers are absolutely the best place to be.
So, let’s get started.
In this Report we’re going to look at the biggest mistake made by viral mailer users as well as some simple strategies that will make a huge difference to the effectiveness and profitability of your viral mailer campaigns.
And then we’ll close by looking at the #1 secret to viral mailer success.
Resist the urge to flick forward. The final chapter will make the most sense when you’ve consumed everything that comes before it.
So, turn the page, and let’s start digging for gold…
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
The Five Secrets of Viral Mailer Success
7
Viral Mailer Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
People don’t join viral mailers to read emails, they join viral mailers to make money.
No surprise then that many members pay little or no attention to the emails they receive from their fellow members.
Don’t be put off by this.
Every type of online advertising, from Facebook ads, to banner advertising, to PPC, is ignored by the majority of users. It doesn’t matter how many people ignore your marketing activities, it only matters how well you communicate your message to the people that do pay attention.
A certain proportion of viral mailer users DO read the emails that they receive and it’s those people that we care about.
But that isn’t the point of this chapter.
The point is that YOU should be making a point of reading the emails that YOU receive.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you some touchy-feely junk about reading emails because it’s the right thing to do, and how you can hardly expect others to read your emails if you don’t read theirs.
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
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Those things are true but they’re still not the reason why you should be paying attention to the emails you receive.
You see, what most people fail to recognise is that the glut of emails they receive every day is really a daily dose of free market research that is loaded with gold nuggets, just waiting to be discovered.
Don’t scoff. Consider…
Discover Killer Subject Lines
Scan your eyes down the list of emails and, when a subject line jumps out at you, pull it out to investigate it in more detail. If the subject line stood out from the crowd there must be something about it that is working really, really well.
Study it. Learn from it.
And then copy the subject line into a swipe file that you can refer to when you’re writing subject lines for your own emails.
Discover Great Email Copy
If the subject line of an email is good, read the content as well. If the email text successfully compels you to click on the link you can also put this one in the category of “something that appears to be working.”
Again, study it. Learn from it.
And then put the email copy into a swipe file to give you ideas for your own email copy.
Notice I said “ideas”. Don’t even think about stealing other people’s emails and using them verbatim, you lazy cretin.
Find the Gaps
You’ve probably noticed the trend that develops when a new, popular program is launched; suddenly the mailer is flooded with messages all promoting the same thing.
VM Secret #1 – Dig For Gold
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Pushing what everyone else is pushing and hoping that your affiliate link is the one that gets noticed is less like a business strategy and more akin to buying a lottery ticket.
By keeping an eye on what other people are promoting you can avoid wasted time attempting to feature the same products and services as everyone else.
And, if you’re really smart, you’ll find the gaps – the promotional ideas and business opportunities that nobody else is featuring. Find those blind spots and you can come up with something to offer that no one else has.
*****
I am, of course, a realist. I’m not suggesting you obsessively study every single email that finds its way to you via a mailer. Who has time for that?
But what you should do is schedule a little bit of time each week to review the emails you’ve received and obtain some valuable intelligence that will improve your campaigns.
VM Secret #2 – Mix It Up
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Viral Mailer Secret #2 – Mix It Up
There’s no such thing as the perfect sales copy.
Thus far, nobody has come up with a combination of words, so perfectly contrived, that 100% of recipients are compelled to make the purchase.
The best we can do, as intelligent marketers, is to split-test our copy and attempt to incrementally increase our results.
But mailer campaigns are a little different.
You see, with sales copy, you usually only get one shot at convincing the visitor to purchase so you show them your best-performing page and hope for a result. But with mailers… you can continue to email members over a period of days and weeks.
It’s not a one-shot deal.
Look at it like this. Let’s say email subject line A gets a 2% open rate and email subject line B gets a 4% open rate. You might think that the best thing to do is to keep sending email subject line B because it gets double the response of A.
But here’s the thing. A certain proportion of people will NEVER respond to subject line B but WILL respond to subject line A. If you only ever send B, you’re missing a chunk of your audience.
VM Secret #2 – Mix It Up
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In other words, subject line B might be a winner, but that doesn’t mean subject line A is useless. What you should be doing is using BOTH email subject lines and, therefore, maximising your overall response rate.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t split-test; it simply means you have to test in a slightly different way.
Split-Test Formula
Please note that this system is just a suggestion and isn’t a definitive strategy. Feel free to modify the numbers and frequencies as you see fit.
If you’re feeling hardcore you can do the same thing with the email copy. That takes a little more effort but will really maximise your results.
Step 1: Write five different subject lines for your campaign. Step 2: Send a different subject line every day for the next five days and record your results. Step 3: Next week, resend the same five subject lines but in a different order (this is because the day on which you send your mailing will also impact the result). Step 4: Discard the two least effective subject lines and write two new ones. You should now have five subject lines, consisting of your three best-performing subject lines and two new ones. Step 5: Repeat Steps 2-5.
VM Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
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Viral Mailer Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
A mailer is never a substitute for owning your own private mailing list because the one thing a mailer can never provide is the opportunity for you to develop a relationship with your readers.
If a mailer member reads one of your emails, the chances of getting a second email in front of them are depressingly random.
But, if you have subscribers on your private mailing list, you have the opportunity to develop a connection with them that will increase your email open rates and drastically increase your click-throughs.
It’s no exaggeration to say that a warm mailing list can provide you with an email open rate that is hundreds of times greater than that which you can achieve through a mailer.
Which is why your primary goal in using mailers, above all else, is to attract the attention of the members and coax them onto your private mailing list.
I really cannot overstate the value of being able to email the same people, on a consistent basis. By sharing your expertise with your audience and combining this with a healthy dose of personality, you can create a loyal audience that hangs on your every word. If you want to see a great example of this (aside from my own awesome emails, of course), check out the Kickstart Newsletter, produced by Martin Avis. His emails are an odd mix of diary entries and product reviews; they’re quite unlike the vast majority of Internet business
VM Secret #3 – Kidnap Members
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mailing lists out there but they’re incredibly effective and have allowed Martin to build an almost fanatical following. www.kickstartnewsletter.com
How do you get mailer members to make the transition onto your mailing list? The obvious way is to send promotions, via the mailer, that direct people to your lead-capturing squeeze pages.
Yes, I appreciate that your business might be of the affiliate marketing variety and you may be accustomed to simply directing readers to other people’s sales pages. But that’s no excuse for not building your own mailing list.
If you send a prospect directly to an affiliate page that person may or may not make the purchase. But if you get that prospect onto your mailing list FIRST, you have multiple opportunities to convert that prospect into a customer by sending them other related offers in the future.
The fact is that, to a greater or lesser degree, most mailing list owners still engage in affiliate activity. Whatever business model you’ve chosen to pursue, a mailing list is still a valuable asset to have at your disposal.
If you don’t have your own products that you can give away via a lead-capture system you need to put a little effort into creating something worthwhile. But it doesn’t have to be as onerous a task as you might imagine.
A “private label rights” report, reworked and polished, behind a squeeze page you’ve paid someone peanuts to create on fiverr.com, powered by the cheapest Aweber.com account, is a quick and inexpensive way to get a lead-capture system in place.
To put it bluntly, if you’re using a mailer to simply send people to affiliate pages, your business is never going to grow beyond a certain point. Gradually and steadily transferring people from your mailer promotions to your own private mailing list is an investment in the future of a business for which the sky’s the limit.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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Viral Mailer Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
Controversy warning!
What I’m about to say is going to upset some people and is probably going to earn me more than a few angry emails.
But that’s never stopped me before from speaking my mind and it’s not going to stop me now.
So I’m just going to come right out and say it…
The biggest mistake people make when using mailers is using safelists.
No, that isn’t a typo. You didn’t misread that line. I’m actually saying, in a Report about safelists, that you shouldn’t be using safelists.
Actually, if you look back over the last dozen pages, you may notice that I’ve studiously avoided referring to safelists, preferring instead the term “Viral Mailer” or just “Mailer”.
And that’s because, although viral mailers and safelists are built on the same idea, they’re FAR from being equal in terms of the success they can offer you and in their ability to connect you with other members.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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This isn’t controversy for controversy’s sake. If you look closely, there are two glaringly obvious reasons why viral mailers are vastly superior to safelists, and why this outdated business model has given the industry such a poor reputation.
Safelists are easy to abuse.
Safelists tend to have a very open mailing system where everybody can email everybody as often as they like, with little or no restriction. A proportion of the member base will ALWAYS take advantage of this by emailing dozens or even hundreds of times a day, even using software to automate the process. It’s a spammer’s paradise filled with hideous MLM and biz-op promotions, drowning out any worthwhile messages that you try to send.
Viral mailers, on the other hand, limit the frequency and reach of each member’s mailing activity. This prevents abuse of the system and keeps the volume of emails to a reasonable level.
(Most) safelist owners don’t care.
My evidence for this damning statement?
Safelist owners commonly tell their members to open a second email account and use this purely to receive emails from other members.
The implication is clear. This is tantamount to saying, “emails from your fellow safelist members are just a nuisance, so just filter all the incoming messages into a bottomless pit and stay as far away from it as possible.”
If members are actively encouraged not to read emails from other members what purpose does the safelist even have?
Simple. Its purpose is for safelist owners to build their OWN list and everyone else can rot!
They might encourage you not to bother reading emails from other members, but you can be sure that they’ll insist on you receiving all of their admin emails containing their own offers.
And when the safelist crashes under the weight of its own uselessness? Just open a new safelist with a stupid name and start again.
VM Secret #4 – The Biggest Mistake
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I added the word “most” to the subheading because there are always exceptions, but they are very few and far between.
Viral mailers, by contrast, are usually designed for the long-term and this means the owners have to do their utmost to ensure members continue to receive and read emails from other members. Double opt-ins are usually a requirement, mailing limits are strictly enforced and some programs will even give out credits in exchange for clicking links in the emails that members send out.
*****
Look, I’m not so naïve as to suggest that all safelist owners are chumps and all viral mailer owners are saints. You’re going to find good and bad in both camps and you need to look for the tell-tale signs that indicate whether a program is worth your time and effort, testing your results to see if your messages are getting through.
But the fact is that you’re vastly more likely to find a productive viral mailer than a productive safelist. So, as controversial as some may consider this recommendation to be, my fourth secret of VM success is to ditch the safelists and stick exclusively to viral mailers.
VM Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
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Viral Mailer Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
This final secret is a complete endgame.
It’s not for everyone but, if you embrace this recommendation, your success with viral mailers is going to be, potentially, hundreds of times greater than that of the average user. Consider…
Q) Which emails sent to viral mailer members get the best open rates and the highest click-through rates?
A) The emails sent by the viral mailer administrator.
Viral mailer members are conditioned to pay special attention to emails from the administrator because they often contain valuable or even essential information. It could be bonus credits, critical information about their account, a reminder that the mailer is available to use, a special upgrade offer…
Whatever it is, the member is more likely to open emails from the administrator than any other email they receive from the mailer.
Owning a viral mailer is a big responsibility and the idea isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But, if you’re even contemplating it, let me encourage you with 5 reasons why being a viral mailer owner is the biggest and best secret to success.
1. Your open and click-through rates are going to go through the roof.
We just mentioned this above but ownership of a viral mailer program, like any membership site, gives you a captive audience.
2. Viral mailers offer great residual profits.
VM Secret #5 – The Biggest Secret
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Naturally, you can use your admin privileges to periodically promote other products or services (although be careful not to abuse your access and irritate your members), but income from upgraded memberships alone can provide a very tidy, regular monthly income.
3. You’re building your own private list.
Remember viral mailer secret #3? Instead of wrestling with landing pages and autoresponders, and spending hours labouring over email copy writing, your viral mailer program takes care of all the heavy lifting for you. Every member that joins your viral mailer is automatically added to your private mailing list.
4. Your members help you build your list.
Remember, this is a VIRAL mailer, so called because members are offered credit-based and financial incentives to encourage others to join your site. The more members that join the mailer, the more affiliates you’ll have promoting your site and helping you to build your list.
5. Virtual real estate leverage.
If you’ve ever read any of my reports, articles, blog posts or forum posts about membership sites you’ll know why I recommend this online business model above just about anything else you can think of. A viral mailer, by its very function, is a form of membership site and that means you’re going to have a number of pages on your site that experience very high traffic.
Your log-in page, your members home page, your mailing page, even your “forgot password” page are going to become high traffic pages on which you can either place carefully selected offers of your own, or do deals with other site owners to swap advertising.
*****
Choosing to build and manage your own viral mailer is a big decision and not something I expect you to settle on mere minutes after being introduced to the idea.
But, if you’re even slightly tempted, turn to the next page to discover the fastest and simplest way to become administrator of your own cutting-edge viral mailer.
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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Viral Mailer Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
If the five preceding secrets can explode your viral mailer marketing success, Viral Mailer Secret X will be like a thermonuclear explosion.
In the previous chapter we looked at the benefits of owning your own viral mailer website, rising above the masses, taking the path that others fear to tread and other hype-tastic clichés.
Owning your own membership site for just about anything is, in my view, an excellent step to take. And a viral mailer is a straightforward and relatively easy introduction into this business model.
But only…
If you find the right software.
The caveat I must add to the preceding “secret” is that, as great as owning your own viral mailer program is, if you set up your website with an inferior script the whole exercise can become a royal pain in the neck.
At best you’ll find that the script limits your opportunities for growth and your attempts to properly monetise your business. At worst your viral mailer system will be a bug-riddled nightmare that drives away members as fast as you can bring them in.
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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So, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to explain why my LFMVM script is the sensible choice for starting your own viral mailer website, especially if you intend to run it as a profit-making business, rather than a slightly nerdy hobby.
A solid, dependable platform
LFMVM, as the name suggests, is built on the popular Launch Formula Marketing (LFM) membership site script. This is significant because it means you don’t have to worry about building your business on a new, untried platform.
Benefiting from years of developments and improvements, LFMVM takes full advantage of everything that has made LFM one of the most reliable and sought after business scripts on the market.
Multiple profit opportunities
There are few things I enjoy more than coming up with creative ways of allowing LFM users to add additional streams of income. To name just a few, LFMVM includes the ability to create…
Upsells
One-time-offers
Login offers
Rotating offers
Affiliate management
Marketing product library
Multiple payment processor integration
Multiple membership levels
One-time or recurring payment functionality
Full suite of mailing features
To develop LFMVM into a world-class viral mailer script we studied the market and included every worthwhile feature we could find. We’ve included elements such as…
Member credit refunds
Advanced scheduling
Anti-cheat measures
Dynamic clicking ratios
Automated monthly bonuses
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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Basically, if you can think of it, it’s probably already included as a standard feature of LFMVM (and if it isn’t, let us know and we’ll seriously consider adding it).
Optional Plugins
If you want to expand your viral mailer still further, there are additional plugins available for purchase that bolt straight onto the standard LFMVM script. These add features such as Twitter marketing integration, tracking and rotator services, promo reward codes, login rewards, and much more.
Training and support
We never leave our customers to fend for themselves. That’s why we have a responsive help desk (answering tickets within 12-24 hours), software training, and an optional installation/upgrade service.
We don’t want you to invest in LFMVM and then leave the script on your hard drive to gather virtual dust. We want you to create a fun, dynamic viral mailer site that you can be proud of, and we’ll help you with whatever you need to get to this point.
Massive member community
Perhaps most significantly we’ve created a private community for LFMVM owners in which you can learn, develop your skills and establish joint venture partnerships.
You’ll have access to monthly teleconferences, our Facebook fan page and our LFMVN Owner’s SKYPE group. We’re a close knit bunch but we love nothing more than welcoming new members and helping them take their first steps to success.
Frankly, I’m only scratching the surface of all the benefits and features LFMVM has to offer. If I’ve whetted your appetite to find out more I’d encourage you to click on the link below to view some examples of the incredible websites other LFMVM owners have created.
http://theviralmailerscript.com
VM Secret X – LFMVM: The Viral Mailer Script
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That’s all folks!
Whether you’re content to use the Intel in this report to improve your viral mailer results, or you’ve been stoked up over the idea of owning your own viral mailer, I hope you soon come to discover, as I have, that viral mailers, despite their critics, are still a highly relevant and effective marketing medium.
And if you remember nothing else from this report…
Remember to stay away from safelists.
You’ll thank me later.
Robert Puddy
http:/thetrafficexchangescript.com
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