[VIDEO] Mailer Sign-up - ClassicSoloMailer

Enjoy my walk-through of signing up and using ClassicSoloMailer.com

Today I'm doing a walk through of the sign up process for ClassicSoloMailer.com - a classic Viral Mailer. Today I'll show you how I get sign-ups for my email list using tools like these.

The video above shows the exact steps I used:

• how to sign up for the mailer,
• how to confirm your account,
• preparing your ad before publishing,
• sending out your email.

I track everything, so I will try to do a follow-up post that covers how effective my ailing was.

Let's dive in! :)

What is a Viral Mailer?

A Viral Mailer is like a safe-list. You send your email promo or ad to other subscribers, and in return they send their ads to you. Easy Peasy.

They are viral in the sense that you can earn referral fees for others signing up to use the mailer, as well as earning credits (which can be used to have your own ad seen) by referring others to sign up.

Each mailer is usually independently owned, so read their terms to see what kind of benefits they offer for referring others. I won't really cover the referral process today. Instead, I am covering how to sign up and use their service for yourself. :)

Viral mailers and safe-lists do work, as long as your niche website or whatever you are promoting aligns with some key markets or niches:

• internet marketing,
• network marketing,
• work-from-home folks,
• make money online,
• get paid to surf, click, etc.
• anyone wanting more traffic to their site.

If your website or offer is related to any of these categories, then the audience\subscriber base of the mailer is a good fit.

However, a site or niche emphasizing 'baby clothing' or classic cars may not do so well advertising in one of these viral mailers.

I've had very good results with mailers because my main site (www.RobWillmann.com) fits in nicely with this group who use mailers. They're my people, so I find it easy to get a decent click-through rate on my emails.

Your mileage may vary.

Today's Sign Up: ClassicSoloMailer.com

ClassicSolomailer.com

On the Internet today I saw an ad for ClassicSoloMailer.com, and since I know well how mailers work, I decided I would give this one a try.

Some basics of what they offer:

• Each day I can mail 1,000 random free members of their service. (I can send one mail every 24 hours...)
• Each month I get 250 email credit bonus. One credit = one email sent to one subscriber.
• Per email offer read, receive 10-20 credits.
• Commission: 20%

Not too bad.

I've upgraded in several mailers that offer good deals. However I only upgrade once I track my stats and determine that the traffic from the mailer to my page consists of real people and I get a decent conversion rate.

In this case, since this was my first mailing with them, I will stay a free member until I can verify that I get good results.

I use the same ad in my video above on several mailers already, so I already know to expect a good click-through rate.

As far as the 10-20 credits per email read, that's not too bad. Many times these types of sites will also send you an email with a more important solo ad, worth several hundred points.

Keep an eye out for those emails, because you can click on them in your inbox and earn quite a number of credits you can use to send out your own email.

Program Owners are Real People, Too.

When signing up for many mailers (and ClassicSoloMailer is no exception) there's an offer for additional credits (1,000 credits) for new sign ups.

That's how they hook you. :) By making it easy for you to send your ad the first time, you get hooked on the service. The next time you want to do a mailing and you're low on credits, you have to view other advertisers' emails to earn credits to 'buy' the audience for your own email. Pretty sharp marketing tactic.

I don't mind, because I have no problem surfing up ad credits when I need to.

Pro Tip: When you find a mailer that has a group of subscribers that really respond to your offer, upgrade in their service. It's usually quite inexpensive, and saves you from spending an hour a week on that site surfing up credits. I've done this in several mailers, simply because my time is valuable and I would rather record videos and write articles like this than click up ad credits. :)

The difference with this program is per their request, I had to email the program owner once I confirmed my email address and ask for the credits.

This isn't a bad idea.

The ClassicSoloMailer.com website owner keeps his ad inflation down by not flooding his mailer with free mail credits for people who aren't serious. In other words, he's only giving out the credits to those people who reach out to him.

That's smart on his part. For me, it's a win as well.

Why?

Because I am being asked to email the website owner, who is a REAL person, and request the starter credits.

Since I have a web consulting business, this is great for me. Even though I am emailing him and asking him for something he's giving away for free, we are starting to build a relationship.

In essence, he's asking for people to email him, which I've now done. He knows I am a serious marketer, and can follow directions. I've begun the process of building a relationship.

In the future, I may be able to email him again, and ask him if there's anything I can do to assist him with growing his mailer to the next level.

I excel at Social Media marketing, so this may be a good fit for the both of us. Win-win.

I wouldn't dream of approaching him yet, since I don't know him well enough. Instead, I determine over time if he has a reputable business and looks to be someone I'd like to partner with, and I get to see how he runs his operation.

For now, it's a start, which is better than what I had when I woke up this morning. :)

Use Split-Testing When Running Ads

Split testing is critical when running ads like this. Essentially you run two nearly identical ads with only one small change between the two, then track your results. Over time this allows you to see which ad, headline, body copy, etc. works best.

Keep the best, and dump the rest.

There's a couple of different methods you can leverage to split test your advertising when using a mailer like ClassicSoloMailer.com. Each method will give you good A/B split testing.

Method One: Split your mailing in half, and use two different email subjects.

This method does the split test in the email subject line. It takes a little more work, but can be effective.

For example, if the mailer you're using allows you to send 2,000 emails, send one email with "Subject A" to 1,000 people. Then submit another email to another group of 1,000 with "Subject B". The rest of the email is identical (with the exception of your tracker URL - you'll want to use a unique tracker URL per ad).

Pros: It helps you determine which email subject is going to get the most people reading and clicking.

Cons: You may send the two emails to the same person twice. So it's not 100% unique viewers to the subject line. That's normally not a big deal, since it often takes multiple exposures to your offer before someone clicks.

Many viral mailers allow their users to read the emails on the website instead of in their email client. When this occurs, potential visitors often just open all the emails and click the links, so the subject line doesn't matter as much.

Split testing is important. If Method One doesn't suit you, try my other method.

Method Two: Use a Rotator for your Destination URL

Method Two is my favorite. Here's how it works:

I have a Rotator URL on LeadsLeap that alternates between two Lead Capture Pages I have on ClickTrackProfit.

The two pages look identical except for the headlines:

The way these mailers work is that in your ad, you're able to specify the destination URL where you want your visitors sent.

I use my rotator URL. When a prospect clicks on the link in the email, they are sent to one of those two pages in my rotator. Both pages are identical with one exception: The headline.

I wrote two distinct headlines and I split test between the two. That way I can see which headline outperforms the other. Nifty!

Track Everything!

Don't spend all this effort sending out an email without tracking the results. You always want to track your results and understand if a viral mailer returns the kind of results you are expecting.

Over time I've collected stats on which ads work, and which mailers have subscribers that actually read my emails. It doesn't matter how 'slick' the marketing is on the site.

If the results are there, I will use them again. Yet, I would have no way of knowing if my ads work unless I tracked my results.

I use LeadsLeap to track my advertising efforts, and have found their tracker to be top-notch. You can visit LeadsLeap here, and sign up. I definitely recommend using their link tracking and Rotator service. It's free and has a lot of functionality.

I've covered LeadsLeap's tracking and interpreting your stats before. Both of these two articles are also video + "how to" article format:

How To Track Your Web Traffic Like a Pro
How To Interpret Your Web Tracker Stats Like a Pro

What Kind of Results do You Get?

At this point, based on my initial tracking stats for ClassicSoloMailer.com, I'd recommend their service. I plan on creating a follow-up article on my results of today's test.

Thanks so much for reading!

I'd love to hear back from you about YOUR results when you use viral mailers and safe-lists. If you have a mailer you'd like me to review, post it too!

-Rob