Email marketing is a great tool for getting out the news about your reseller business – the Express Email Marketing® account you received with your reseller plan can automatically import customers who have opted in to receive emails from your company.

But current customers aren’t your only market – building up a mailing list offers you even greater reach. Plus, if you can segment your audience based on their interests, you can make your messages even more relevant and valuable to the recipient. Express Email Marketing gives you all the tools necessary to build your lists and create these segments via Interest Groups.

Step 1: Build a Sign-Up Form

To start building a sign-up form, look under the ‘Opt-In Magnet’ menu. You’ll see options for adding a logo and changing fonts and colors. Be sure and use these to make your sign-up form friendly and approachable. Find the logo and color scheme that goes with your site and you’ll keep your branding strong and ensure visitors that they’re in the right place.

You may also wish to change the section heading copy to set the tone for the form. Stick with the standard “Please tell us a little about yourself” or lighten the tone to “What’s the 411 on our favorite customer?” Then carry that tone through to the custom questions – think of these as an introductory survey. Ask how they heard about you; how they’d rate your pricing; ask them for their Web site url so you can learn more about their business, etc. These questions do not determine your email segments; they should be considered additional user information – you will be able to view the responses when you look up an individual subscriber profile.

Interest Groups allow you to create custom demographic segments. In the form builder, set up your Section Heading now. Then we’ll talk about what you might want to add for Interest Groups in the next step.

The Subscription Confirmation Message is the perfect spot to customize your message and remind users of a current special, and then drive them back to a product page or custom landing page to make a purchase. If you use this page for offers, you’ll need to keep the completion page up to date, or choose an offer that doesn’t expire.

Step 2: Manage Interest Groups

There are two types of Interest Groups available in your Express Email Marketing account. The first, Public Interest Groups, is where you let your customers decide to opt in to lists via the sign-up form and their individual profile. The second, Private Interest Groups, is where you build your own segment that users won’t have access to – it’s managed via the List Database Manager. Here are suggestions on how to use each type:

Public Interest Groups – Use these to define the demographics that let you customize your offers. For example, you might want to call out entrepreneurs versus web hobbyists. Is the person who buys your eCommerce product running their own online store, or are they working with a charity and taking donations online? Think of creative ways to ask for this info that make it fun for respondents to tell you more about themselves.

Example:
I consider myself an Internet…
[] newbie – I’m just getting started self-publishing
[] self-starter – I’m building my Internet presence from scratch
[] entrepreneur – I’m taking my brick-and-mortar business online
[] veteran – the ‘Net is my home ground
[] junkie – the Web is where I live

How could you use these demographics?  

• Be sure to let the newbies and self-starters know about Website Tonight®, Online Photo Filer, Online File Folder, Traffic Blazer® and Traffic Facts – newbies might need more help getting up and running, and the self-starters just need to know you have these things available.
• For the entrepreneurs, focus on the importance of owning domain variations for their business and give them examples of how they can use each: .com for main site; .net for private employee login; .org if they have a tie to a non-profit or just want to protect their interests; .info as a landing page for business listings; .jobs to post their careers page, etc. You can also focus on the eCommerce tools, Express Email Marketing, Traffic Facts and Online File Folder as essential business tools.
• The veteran and junkie are going to want to do everything themselves – let them know about the features of the virtual dedicated and dedicated servers. They may also be candidates for Express Email Marketing and Quick Blogcast to share their knowledge with their Internet contacts.

When coming up with your Interest Groups, think about how you want to tie your reseller business to your target market (or your other existing businesses).

Private Interest Groups – If you want to A/B test subject lines or email content, use Private Interest Groups to segment your audience. Create a group for each – you’ll have to opt in half of your audience (tedious if you have a large subscriber list). A quick way to do it: Once your Interest Groups are built, go into the List Database Manager and do an Advanced Search in ‘View Subscribers.’  Use the wildcard symbol, *, to search alphabetically, assigning every other letter of the alphabet to your ‘A’ list segment, and the other half to your ‘B’ segment. Here’s how you build the search string:

Condition: [Email Address] [is] [a*]

You can add multiple search strings, so go ahead and build it a-z for the group you want to add to the ‘A’ list and run the search. At the bottom of the page you’ll see a count in ‘Displaying results 1-100 of NNN.’ Check to see if NNN is roughly half of your overall subscribers. If not, you might want to add or remove a few letters of the alphabet until it is. When the number is good, use the dropdown boxes at the top of the list to ‘Assign to Interest Group.’ Then pick your new Private Interest Group.

The ‘B’ half is even easier. Run your search for Interest Groups ‘Not in an Interest Group’ and pick your ‘A’ list. Next, assign the results to your ‘B’ list and your A/B test lists are ready to go.  By assigning everyone to one list or the other, it will be easier to update new subscribers – just run a periodic search on anyone not in either ‘A’ or ‘B’ and assign half of them to each list.

Another use for Private Interest Groups is to identify groups that have meaning to you, but that you don’t want your users to use to self-identify, such as:

• A monthly renewal list – Build a monthly list of people up for product renewal. Send them a custom announcement in addition to standard renewal notices.
• Bulk domain buyers – Do you have an audience segment that buys domains in bulk? To make sure they’re aware of the reduced pricing, identify these people to get special emails each time a new domain sale starts.
• Online Photo Filer customers – Time communications to this crowd around each holiday.  Remind them of holiday-themed templates they can use to customize their albums, as well as the low pricing to get pictures printed directly from their photo albums.
• Your best customers – Repay their loyalty by dropping pricing for a 24- or 36-hour period. Make sure these people know it’s a sale just for them.

 Step 3: Add Subscriber Link

This is one of the tools you’re going to use to build your list. Put the invitation to join your mailing list everywhere you can think of – include it on your storefront and include it in your order confirmation emails (as an invitation to receive exclusive email updates). If you have an email newsletter, be sure to invite people to subscribe on your site, in blog posts, and in your email signature. If you do banner advertising, use a banner that invites people to subscribe to special offers and drive them to your sign-up form.

Step 4: Edit Email Notices

Here’s another opportunity to include your own branding, a conversational tone, and/or refer subscribers to a special offer. For example, set it up as “This Week’s Customer Special” and send them to one landing page – just be sure to keep the offer on that landing page up to date. 

It doesn’t hurt to part with kind words either – if someone chooses to unsubscribe, you can create your own message to let them know you’re sorry to see them go, and invite them to come back and rejoin the mailing list if their needs change in the future.