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I'm drowning! Someone throw me a floaty (13)

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Particularly caurmen guardian of the guides, I would love your knowledge on everything in this post but particularly my first question...

Why is there hardly any discussion or guide about email marketing? At the moment there is not one person shown viewing the email section of the forum and the stickies are 2-3 years old and none of them being a serious guide to the stunning detail of something like zeno's facebook, caurmens cookbook, angryrussians mobile marketing, IAmAttilas mobile spying or like the awesome follow alongs and case studies by stackman (endless respect to all you guys your posts inspire me and have saved me thousands)

This lack of information on email has got so many thoughts running through my head that I cannot comfortably relax. So I'd like to hear all of your opinions and stories on email marketing. I'd also like to borrow all your wisdom to clear things up for me. I apologize in advance, I know my thoughts are scattered throughout this post. The amount of information here is drowning me and I need someone to throw me some floaties.

Everything I've read before coming here led me to believe email is king. Properly optimizing an email funnel with PPC, and especially if backed by a network free traffic sources, seems like planting a money tree that can only grow. And if we're buying traffic, why not keep it? I don't understand why we would buy traffic and then direct link it to an offer. If we sent the clicks to our own landing page and collected their email we could send them offers for however long they continue to read the emails. These offers would be spaced by quality niche-related content of course. A list is your own traffic source that can be tapped into for any niche related offer we come across. This traffic is free and more likely to convert since you already have their trust. But the lack of interest in that from a group of wealthy entrepreneurs is a serious red flag I cannot ignore.

Is email actually some of the highest profit potential, so good that people don't want to share their secrets and create competition?

Or do people advise it to noobs and talk it up so much on free sites like BHW, Warrior forum and MMO blogs to feed misinformation throwing off other affiliates and lessening competition. Leaving more space in the really lucrative areas of AM?

Is it too many variables? on page 9 we can see just one word in the headline can throw off everything
http://blog.thestudio4.co.uk/wp-cont...eport_2013.pdf

With so many variables that leaves so much more room to split test. Which would of course be harder, but with all those variables the possibilities are endless. There could be split test after split test until you find ridiculous ROI. From things to the headline, the content, the voice, how many days you wait to offer something, if you send it from a brand or personal name etc.

If everyone else is focusing on CPA offers like app installs, mobile sweepstakes, pin submits etc. wouldn't I be going against the grain with massive competition? There would be people so much more experienced, more intelligent, better equipped and with more resources to compete against. People will be spying on me and ripping off my campaigns. What if I did something barely anyone else did and went under the radar by focusing on building a highly optimized list in a really small and obscure niche like witchcraft. Then promoted Clickbank products in the witchcraft section. I couldn't imagine anyone is bidding very high on those keywords and if they are they would be easily outranked by basic tactics learned here. Or is that so 2008?

I know there isn't much direction in this post, but could I have your expert opinions on email marketing and the points addressed?

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There's two possible reasons, why..

Method A - which requires a lot of work, building a list by engagement, developing character, then sending them stuff that keeps opens/new subscribers/unsubscribers in a healthy balance. Most people on this forum come for the quick cash, the instant affiliate gratification. Therefore this isn't appealing.

Method B, the email spamming method where you buy email lists, or you find them/scrape them yourself. This method like cloaking is not allowed to be discussed on the forum openly, but its being done of course. It's also not easy, requiring one many servers, many tricks to bypass filters, and becoming an expert at inboxing. Again not something that newbies can easily understand.

That's why I believe there's not much talk about email, because it's straight up too much work, or just hard for the average newb vs them running app installs or pin submits, or sweepstakes.

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Email can be a good channel, but it definitely is not king. I am not sure where you got that idea ...

Each channel has pros and cons. There are attractive aspects of email and less attractive ones.

However, I am not sure that email is necessarily less competitive than some of the other channels, though, if my inbox and spambox are anything to judge by.

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Especially in the Warrior forum and nearly everything I've read before coming to this forum has highly recommended email to be the starting point for any affiliates. I've heard the quotes "The money is in the list" and "Email is king" more times than I can count. And it makes sense, you own a traffic source that is much more likely to convert from pre-built trust. Especially if they don't have to pay and are directed to a CPA offer. If you've developed free traffic sources directing to the list it is 100% profit. You also aren't paying for traffic and then throwing it away for data. You buy the traffic, keep the traffic, and still get the data to optimize your campaigns. So even if they don't convert now they might later and even if they don't convert, you still have that weight to throw around at any project you may think of. It seems to be a beautiful thing and the lack of interest rattles my brain. Email in general may be competitive yes, but what do you think of my example? A highly optimized email funnel split tested to hell with PPC and then backed by a network of free traffic methods. In a weird niche hardly anyone else would consider like the Clickbank product section of witchcraft or numerology. It seems to be an open playing field with non existent competition in bidding over keywords.

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I really like email lists, but I'd definitely say they're not the king - just another route.

They're great because you can actually build a sustainable asset, and you gain a lot of flexibility in the offers you push, but they require more optimisation and more ongoing work than one-off campaigns.

Having said that, we've had a fair amount of discussion on them in the past. No formal guides (yet - although it's a great idea and I might look at writing one in the new year) but we've had Follow-Alongs focused on them, and several of our senior members and moderators are email specialists.

I'd recommend having a read through the post history of

http://stmforum.com/forum/member.php?2249-johnaff

and

http://stmforum.com/forum/member.php?1638-_mcr_

There are more nuggets of gold in both of those than you'll know what to do with! In particular, MCR recently was part of an exit for an email-based company in the mid 8 figures.

And if you're thinking of going the email route as it sounds like you are - start a Follow-Along! That way you'll get lots of advice specifically tailored to what you're doing. We recently had another email follow-along and the poster got detailed advice on that thread from both cmdeal and myself among others.

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing how you get on!

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Please forget and unlearn EVERYTHING you may have read in Warrior Forum.

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You seem to currently be suffering from an information overload loop which is causing you to unnecessarily overanalyze everything. Thoughts racing back and forth and uncertainty trying to settle in all because you read a few words on a place like the Warrior Forum, then you came to STM and remained completely shocked as to why there isn't a lot of email marketing activity.

^ Just as cmdeal suggested, please do this immediately - erase from you mind whatever you may have read on the WF, BHW and the likes, and especially MMO blogs (by far the WORST possible place where you can read about email "marketing"). These don't even remotely qualify as marketing advice.

Checkout STM's success stories and you'll quickly find out why email marketing isn't that popular around here.

Email marketing is a very slow and difficult process which is why it's not as appealing to affiliates here. It's hard, takes a lot of work and a lot of thought, and affiliates are known to be extremely lazy.

Let's say we started a race - I'll launch just 10 one-off campaigns per day, while you try to build a full-blown marketing sales funnel for a few months in a supposedly narrow/small and poorly researched niche, who do you think would win?

Building a "highly optimized, split-tested to hell" list is not nearly as simple as you might believe. For starters you need to know how to write proper copy, which doesn't involve using a "{Replace_words_here} guaranteed-to-work, proven persuasion guru template" or resorting to typical marketing buzzwords that are being way overused everywhere by "expert" marketers (a.k.a trained monkeys that can copy-paste). Then you need to learn how to do conversion rate optimization both at the funnel and the traffic source where simple split-testing barely scratches the surface. Not to mention that you need to master a traffic source as well if you are to see good results (forget about free traffic). And the list goes on and on.

Your best bet right now would be to just jump in and try it - start a follow along, get moving and see for yourself if you can make it work instead of just overthinking and doing nothing.

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There IS indeed a lot of potential in email marketing. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

But as many members have pointed out above: High-quality subscribers can be expensive to collect, and growing and nurturing a responsive list can be a slow process.

During my SEO days (2006-2015, RIP) I used to run small mailing lists (5-10k/ea) and was doing quite well with some of them. The first hurdle was figuring out which niches had high profits potential, that had fanatics willing to spend a fortune on a range of products.

Second hurdle was to come up with a way to target these people. I had several sites (and should have built many more) that were targeting various niche keywords, that were getting free search traffic. SEO Is a whole different game now. I don't know if it's as easy to rank for keywords as it was 5-10 years ago.

There are ways to get targeted traffic from paid sources like adwords/bing or FB. But of course, that type of traffic will cost you a fortune. You could still make a lot of profits IF you're really good at monetizing the backend though.

There are also ways to buy broad (untargeted) traffic for cheap (think pop), but it would be difficult to get these people to subscribe to anything, let alone trying to monetize them.

Thirdly, you'd need to have a good hook to get people to give up their email nowadays. And if you're paying for traffic, then the subscribe rate will be even more crucial than if you were getting free traffic.

Fourthly (is that even a word?), you'd need to have a way of sending out emails in a way that they'll not end up in people's junk folder.

Lastly of course, you'd need to figure out how to monetize the hell out of the list you've built. With so many other emails people are getting nowadays, yours will be competing for the subscriber's attention with a ton of other emails. And your emails will need to be entertaining and informative enough to keep the subscriber's attention long enough for them to get to your aff link. And before that point, your previous emails would need to have provided so much value that the subscriber would trust you enough to purchase based on your recommendation.

With so many steps in the funnel, and losing a percentage of visitors/subscribers at each step, it's just not easy to end up with profits.

There is potential to make money in many different ways. And the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from doing anything - as long as they're prepared to face the challenges ahead and would be willing to conquer them.

The best threads on email marketing have already been suggested by caurmen above. Here's one more:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...6-Introduction

(It started as an introduction, but the OP ended up sharing a lot of tips on how he was running his email funnel.)

Best of luck on your journey, whatever you may decide to pursue!



Amy

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I was already upset with myself for spending so much time on those sites but you guys are really hammering that in. I had heard of STM years ago, but my thinking was always why spend money for something I can learn for free? I thought it was for people that weren't aware of BHW or Warrior. Until I decided to jump in and try STM for myself and now I see why. BHW is unethical and Warrior forum is parasitic they feed off each other. A bunch of blind leading the blind on how to make money, when really they are just making money off of each other by pushing shitty advice to lure you into their WSO's where they give even shittier advice. (I've bought several). Agh the world of AM is frustrating, no wonder I've only lost thousands in AM. The detail here is incredible I've already earned my money back just from time gained by not shifting through garbage to find shinier garbage which they call tutorials, money saved, and new opportunities I had no idea existed.

Look at this post for example "Best email marketing tips 2016" https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/be...s-2016.882023/
This is a joke!! Not only is this advice incredibly vague and outdated it recommends mailchimp which bans affiliates...

I've learned more in one day reading caurmens posts than I have years(on and off) of Warrior forum. And dude I would thank every post you have before I even read it if you wrote a guide like that! I agree my best bet is to jump in and try it, you guys are having me leaning more towards setting aside 2,000 so I can set up some campaigns following the mobile cookbook. They are so step by step that I can't possibly fail without learning something. I can also post some follow alongs and get the best help possible. But I am definitely not the type to just sit back and overthink and not do anything though. Quite the opposite. My problem is I jump head first into everything I do. I have launched many projects and campaigns from the pieced together advice I got from those sites but they've always failed miserably and costed me alot of money. I would read a link like the one above and then start a campaign based off it. I've even ran PPC campaigns without realizing I needed to split test. So now that I'm here and know how much I don't know, I am realizing I need much more information before jumping into anything and wasting more money that I don't have. Trust me I'm dying to get started but have more self control than my teenage self.

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Hopefully what I wrote didn't come off as pushy, was just trying to show you a more realistic view on things, just as all the other posts in this thread. We have all gone through the shiny object syndrome buying guides on impulse and whatnot when we were just starting out.

You can get tons of invaluable advice and guidance here, regardless of what you decide to dive into. Cheers!

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This is a fantastic post. Seriously thank you so much. This has saved me so much money. You've broken down reason by reason everything I needed to know. You were having these struggles way back in 2006 when it was much easier. It's almost 2017, I couldn't imagine how difficult it all must be at this point. Jumping into email would be like trying to both hunt and cook the steak with my bare hands before I know how to microwave hot pockets. There's so many more variables that I didn't even think of and each step of the funnel more and more people flake off making testing cost a fortune. And the entire time I'm testing I'm going to need serious data and budget to know if what I'm finding is chance or not. With so many variables I have no idea what is correlated and what is chance. I could split test for CTR and find ad A has great CTR. And then split test for open rates and find people generally open more emails when I give them information instead of entertainment so I go with series B. But the people clicking on ad A do so because it's a funny ad. But then after opting in they are bored by the info heavy emails and then my unsubscribe rate goes up. There's such a cross connecting web of variables that may effect each other in unpredictable ways. And that the email will most likely be immediately sent to the junk folder, or buried in a series of other emails. Or you were given a junk email that's used just for submits. Thanks again I see clearly now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSuB4t3q_dA

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Not at all! You could tell me that is the worst idea you've ever heard and I would not take it harshly. The more blunt and direct people can be to me the better this is money we're talking about and should be taken seriously. I am paying money for your responses and information. And yours was very informative and to the point which is just what I needed. I'm happy to have as many perspectives and answers to my questions as I possibly can. You've all helped clear up questions in my head, scrap overly optimistic time and money wasting plans and motivated me to find a clear focus and stick to it. I need to reread all of the mobile guides probably twice more each and then all the case studies. Afterwards within this next week or so I will be posting my first follow along to get my feet. I'd be honored if you and everyone here would advise me and watch over my progress!

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If you have the budget for it, I would try to book a flight to Bangkok for the Affiliate World Asia conference on December 5-6 https://affiliateworldconferences.com/

This can potentially give you the inspiration, the contacts and the network that can help to really kickstart your efforts, as with many others like in this must read post: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...y-life-forever

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