Welcome Everybody – this is Mark Valentine, aka Jazzkat, the Multimedia Professor.

I know it has been a while since I have updated my blog but since we last talked, I packed up everything I own and moved it across town. I also underwent a procedure involving a camera that explored the far reaches of my digestive tract, but that is entirely more information than you wanted to know. But, just so you know, everything is fine.

So now I want to move ahead with more discussion about my passion, which happens to be internet marketing using permission based email. This is an area well worth studying in some detail. The reason being, that it approaches and tries to address a problem which most everybody is familiar. Namely, Spam.

If you are receiving unwanted, unsolicited email, you know what I mean when I say there ought to be a law. Well, in fact there is a law known as the Can Spam act. This little piece of legislation was an attempt to shut down those wily spammers making it a crime to send out bulk mail that the recipients didn’t ask for. So how do you send bulk email and not be lumped in with the spammers.

Well, we are now in a new age of communication. There are digital solutions to most of the problems you face when you are trying to promote your message. But, in this brave new world we are facing a new problem, the problem of clutter.

More and more, it seems that everybody is trying to get our attention through the email inbox. We all feel inundated with email on a daily basis. That is why it takes some real explaining when I tell a client that their best marketing solution is to send email campaigns to their list using an auto responder.

The big hurdle here is to overcome the common misconception. One that most people see the sending of bulk mail to their list, as being the same thing as what the spammers do. Therefore, most don’t want any part of it.

So, how do we differentiate ourselves from the lowlife spammer? How can we send email to a large list and make it so that it is not only welcomed, but actually anticipated by the prospective client? Well, the answer lies in the packaging of your message to where it requires a subscription.

I know you have seen the opt-in box on many websites and that is the key ingredient for us permission based email marketers. By placing a form on a web page, blog or email, the prospective client is invited to join the club or mailing list by leaving their email address.

When you do this you are asking for a great deal of trust and most people are reluctant to just hand it over. Therefore, it always helps to offer an incentive for their attention. A popular gift might be a white paper or e-book which must be relevant.

To be relevant it must cover the topic which the prospect initially typed into google and then it led them to land on your page. That’s what a landing page is. Essentially, there is a specific niche or area of expertise, which is discussed in great detail on a one page sales letter.

The landing page offers a solution to a single problem. One that can be discussed in some detail within the ad copy. The supporting ad copy which is quite often accompanied by a video, will be the first place where you will be gaining his trust or build a sense of rapport with the customer.

This is key because people are likely to buy from people they know, like, and trust.
At this point, if you are effective at painting yourself as an authority, you can easily point them to a form where they will subscribe to your marketing.

Tomorrow we will talk more about what happens after they sign up for your newsletter. So until then.