You’ve created a great website and you’ve got traffic, but not the kind of signups or actions you would like. What do you do next? Consider using email marketing. You don’t need to sign up for an email marketing service, you can do it yourself easily. Emails sent by you can help to support your website and engage your audience. Once your audience is engaged, you can ask them to the do the next step, whether it’s signing up to be an affiliate, buying your product or visiting your store in person.  An example of a type of email you might send to a website visitor is one with more information, a deal, or an action item. It’s up to you to decide the content of your email to take your audience to that next step.

Before you get started with email, here are a few points to keep in mind.

Users Must Opt In

To avoid being labeled as SPAM or worse, people who will be receiving emails from you must first opt-in. This means that they must provide their email address to you, understanding that they are signing up to receive emails from you. This can be accomplished by a simple contact form on your website. Both SiteBuilder and WordPress allow you to add a contact form to your website. Simply adjust the text above the contact form to say something like “To learn more by email” or “Subscribe to our email list for deals” and you’ve met the requirement for opt-in. Double opt-in are helpful as well, but require more services. If you’re interested in using a double opt-in, you can learn more here.

Provide Real Value

Now that you’ve got subscribers to your email, you want to make it worth their effort. You can do this by providing real value. Value can be helpful information, a coupon or deal,  or a collection of links that may be interesting to your new subscribers. Consider all the emails you see in your inbox, what makes you open the few you do? Keep this in mind as your draft your email and your email subject line.

Check back for Part II on Friday. Please leave any questions in the comments.