by Sharla Jacobs

In last month’s article I shared with you 5 Steps to Build Your List FAST!

However, I didn’t tell you how we went from a local list of 300 people to over 24,000 people within just a few years! I saved THAT story for today’s article...

So how DO YOU add hundreds, or even thousands, of new subscribers to your list within just a few days?

You build powerful relationships with powerful players...

These relationships are commonly referred to as “JVs” - or Joint Venture partnerships.

Ideal JV partners have large communities of your ideal clients. When you partner to promote each other, they send out an email to their list promoting YOU.

What’s the best thing to offer in this kind of promotion? You want to offer a FREE GIFT to their people (like I talked about in last month’s article). So when they sign up for that, they also sign up for your email list. And... voila ... you build your list FAST!

What most people don't know is that these types of relationships almost always happen through meeting someone live at an event or getting a personal introduction.

One of our best JVs happened when one of our clients introduced us to Eben Pagan. (If you don't know who he is, he is one of the best Internet marketers in the world.)

Eben watched Rose Cole go from $45,000 to $250,000 in one year while going through our Six Figure Speaker program. He was impressed with the results she got and asked to meet us.

This introduction ended up adding 1,100 people to our list in one day and $31,000 in sales!

So you can see how a great JV can do wonders for your business.

Want to learn more about this strategy? Listen in on a recorded interview with me and PJ Van Hulle from her List-a-Palooza Telesummit about using JV partnerships to explode your list.

In order to attract potential JV partners, here are two things you need to do:

1. Create a great reputation for yourself

Having a great reputation is something to always strive for in your business. Many people won't even consider promoting you until they are 100% sure that anyone they send your way will come back thanking them for the introduction.

We are constantly updating and improving our programs so our clients continue to get better and better results. Because we’re committed to delivering tons of value and having our clients get great results, we have a great reputation among our colleagues.

Make sure you provide the very best service and value to your clients that you are capable of...and always strive to improve in this area.

2. Get a great introduction and add value

Getting an introduction where you are positioned as an authority on a topic and as a high integrity person puts you on the fast track to creating these types of partnerships.

And when you do get an introduction, the best thing to start with is by asking what they are working on and how you might be able to help them. Can you make an introduction? Can you recommend software or another resource that will help them?

Starting out this way creates a great way to connect. This doesn't necessarily mean they will promote you right away. But you would be surprised how many times someone will turn around and ask you the same question. And then you can let them know what you're working on and that you are looking for promotional partners so you can reach more people.

When you focus on building a real relationship with your potential JV partners, you’ll find that not only do you build your list fast, you also have more fun doing it.

To get more support with building your email list (no matter if you’re just starting out or you have a large list already), I invite you to join me and other leading experts for an incredible virtual program called, "List-a-Palooza." This is a great resource for tapping into free information (and you’ll also hear about the 90 Day List Building Challenge).

For more information and to register, click here:
Yes! I’m ready to build my list!

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The Truth About Open Rates

by 6-Figure Newsletter and Email Marketing Expert Linda Claire Puig

How many of your subscribers open the emails you send?

Many coaches and service professionals new to email marketing get discouraged when they look at the measurement called "open rate." Those who've been at it for a while do, too.

Why is only a third of my contact list opening my emails? There must be something wrong. Is it worth all this effort if only a few people are reading what I send?

Before you throw in the towel, I want to let you in on a secret that a lot of folks don't know:

Your open rate isn't really your open rate.

As a measurement, the open rate is highly unreliable, imprecise and inadequate.

To show you why that is, I have to explain a little about how open rates are calculated and tracked.

The open rate is actually a ratio calculated as the number of people who opened your email divided by the total number of emails that were successfully delivered to your list.

Email marketing software automatically adds a tiny, invisible image to each email delivered. When this invisible image is called to show up (invisibly) from the server where it lives, that tracks the email as being opened.

But this number is skewed -- perhaps significantly -- by what are known as "image blockers." More and more people use web mail providers (such as Gmail or Yahoo) or applications (such as Outlook) that allow users to decide whether to view their emails with the images turned on or off.

When you see things showing up in your email with all the images turned off, that's what's happening: you have a setting somewhere that is saying "Ask me first if I want to see images." Your images are "disabled" until you click to "enable" them. So...

If a person elects not to view images when reading an email, it will NOT count as an open.

Likewise, the people that elect to receive text-only emails from you (if you give them the option of text or HTML), also will not register as an "open." Some mobile devices only allow emails to be viewed in text form.

Your open rate reporting could actually be off anywhere from 11% to 35%, according to generally accepted metrics in the email marketing world. That's quite a bit!

So while it may look like nobody is opening them, your emails may actually be doing quite well.

So should you just ignore open rates then?

No. Despite their shortcomings, open rates can still provide valuable marketing information. Tracking your open rates can help you:

1. Spot trends. For example, if you notice a significant downward trend in your open rates over time (not just occasional dips, say during summer when folks are out of town more), it may be a signal that you need to do something to re-engage your subscribers.
2. Learn your audience's preferences. You may be able to notice what days and times of day are better for sending by comparing your open rates.
3. Test subject lines. Split your list into two or three groups, and send the same email with different subject lines to see which one generates more opens (which may indicate more interest).

Is there anything you can do to improve your open rates?

Yes, absolutely! It may not be the most accurate measurement in the world, but there are proven ways to improve your open rates. And improvement is always good.

Of course, your list should be an opt-in (permission-based) list. If not, that's the first place to start improving. Otherwise, look to some of these areas to improve your rates:

1. Make sure your content is relevant and valuable. Know what your audience wants, and provide it. Relevant content is read content.
2. Examine your frequency of emailing. Too much emailing can cause "list fatigue" and too little can cause the "who's that?" syndrome.
3. Write HOT subject lines. These short phrases are often the golden key to unlocking your open rates. Make people hungry to open your emails and see what's inside!

A NOTE FROM Thrive Academy: Linda is offering a free training on how to create HOT subject lines on Tuesday, April 23, and I highly suggest that you join her! Among other things, she'll be showing you how improving your subject lines can double your business, the 7 biggest subject line mistakes sabotaging your email results, and the #1 secret to avoid getting your emails reported as spam!

Please join her here: http://www.profcs.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=878767&u=www.7deadlysubjectlinemistakes.com

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