When emailing your list, you essentially have three options. You can send them an email that is strictly content based, meaning no sales pitch, an email that is purely a sales pitch or one that is a combination of both. I try to send the third option as seldom as I can. But the question is, if doing this, what do you lead with…the content or the sales pitch? Ultimately, you need to test what works best with YOUR list but in this article, I’m going to share my personal opinion based on my own results.

First of all, my best response emails are the ones where I just get right to the pitch and keep it short. This probably answers your question as to why I seldom send out an email with content and a sales pitch. But why is this the case? Why do my sales pitch emails work the best? The answer, I believe, is because the subscriber isn’t distracted by a lot of other things. If you’ve got content and a sales pitch going in one email, there may be too much there to absorb and as a result, the subscriber closes up the email and does nothing.

Okay, but having said that, if you’re going to combine the two things, what do you lead with? In my experience, if you have a list that values content over anything else, it is best to lead with this and somehow tie it in to what you’re selling. You’ve essentially given them information that they can use to improve their business and then provide them with a product or service option that can improve it even more. For example, I might send an email with article writing tips and then at the end, give them a link to a book that teaches all about article writing and marketing. This tactic can be very effective if used properly.

Having said that, I have seen list owners (and darn smart ones) who get the pitch out of the way and then get right into the content. Not having access to their stats, I don’t know how effective this is but from my own experience, presenting the content first is the better way to go.

Ultimately, as I said, you have to test this for yourself to see which works better for YOU.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of not getting your emails delivered, read or opened? Sick of not making any sales from your email marketing efforts? Visit my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/emailmarketing/index.html and get your hands on 5 years of my personal experience with email marketing…experience that has earned me tens of thousands of dollars yearly.