It never fails when it comes to helping noobs get into mail: eventually they are going to get discouraged - some to the point of quitting. And this usually happens in the first 90-120 days. The once eager and energetic future email all-stars hit that proverbial wall and lose all the momentum they had leading up to this point. I want to take a minute to give you some advice and hopefully this will help you get over that wall and continue on in your email career. "When it comes to emailing remember one thing: The ONLY constant is CHANGE!" Every emailer in this forum that has more than a year or two of experience has gone through more up's and down's than you might imagine. Just ask one of us and see what kind of answers you get. Take away from this that no matter who you are or how hard you're trying - there WILL come a day when email rears up it's ugly head and bites you so very squarely on the ass you'll question why in the fuck you ever decided to do it! It's at this point that the true emailers will be separated out from the heard and the weak will be picked off one at a time. And what exactly are the challenges that noobs face that take the most effort to over come? Shit...that's a long list. Let's start with a few of the most common ones: 1. The cost of emailing. This is obvious right? I mean, we all got into this to make the fat stacks you hear the top mailers making so after a solid 30-60 days of emailing when you realize you aren't making more than a hundred or 2 a day and it MUST be time to quit! If this is the case you were delusional when you got into email. You aren't going to make tons o cash super fast in email any more than you would if you signed up for that biz opp you've been pushing the last 2 weeks 'cuz your network rep said it was a killer offer. You'll get over this hurdle if you set realistic earning expectations for yourself. You need to have at LEAST 3 months operating expenses in reserve assuming you make ZERO your first 90 days of mailing. Then a realistic goal of breaking even in a month, then turning a profit should be your next goals. This is a process and if it were as simple as a step by step guide to email riches there'd be a helluva lot more members in forums like this. 2. The basics - aren't so basic. What the fuck does this mean? Well - it means that the basic knowledge you need to simply get set up to start mailing is hardly basic information/knowledge and you need to pay damn close attention to anyone/everyone helping you. Assuming you're asking for help. Going at email alone is probably the #1 reason noobs fail. Just learning enough to set up a system, servers, sourcing data, network connections and things like offer cycling and drop scheduling take time to learn and hone into a workable model. You can waste a lot of time, money and energy going at it alone before you realize that it takes a village to raise a child. This forum is a prime example of how far the email marketing community has come in the last several years. This forum alone has more resources for noob mailers than any group of other places I know of. Combine that with the willingness of the members here to help noobs and you have what I consider to be the best tools in the industry to learn the ropes. Take advantage of it. Use it. And when you learn something, give back to it for others who will be walking in your footsteps one day. 3. Be patient. This one is tough. Every noob I know has the same goal: ramp this bitch up til it's making $1000+ a day! While that's a great goal, you're a loooong way from that and you need to put in your time. Sending mail - easy. Learning what happened AFTER you sent it - not so easy. Give yourself the time to learn the difference between mailing on 1 IP/domain vs. running on a range. Watch what happens on each drop. Look through your server logs and familiarize yourself with the various ISP responses you're getting. Learn what they mean, learn how to overcome them. Shit, learn that you can go to AOL or Hotmail or various ISP postmaster pages and see exactly what these mean and then you can come here and ask questions about strategies/techniques to handle each. This is going to be part of your daily mailing routine. Get used to it. The better you get at handling this issue the better off you'll be in the long run. In this area it will be beneficial for you to have someone in your corner helping you along but at the end of the day you need to know this stuff yourself if you ever want to get to the point you are on your own. 4. You'll NEVER know everything there is to know about emailing. This could be the single most important thing you need to realize. There is never going to be a point where you know SO much about mail that you can just sit back and watch the money roll inn. What works for Yahoo today - won't next week. Your killer GI template - it's gonna lose traction over time. The offer you have killing it right now, ain't gonna do much for you after a while. And with knowing this comes the need to ALWAYS try to stay a step or two ahead of the game. You should always take time to test new creatives. Test new strategies for the domains you're targeting. Hell - after you get good at one or two domains your greed will take over and you'll think you can hit 'em all! Good luck with that by the way! Every single time you make a change, try something new or venture a little deeper into the water you'll discover yet another thing you did not know. This holds true for EVERY emailer out there without exception. So if you see some success coming out of the gates, don't let a road block like deferrals or domains blocking you discourage you to the point of doubting yourself. Remember that every time you get kicked in the balls by email it's another chance for you to pick up some valuable knowledge. Learn from your mistakes and do your best not to repeat them. We're all guilty of it from time to time but that's something that separates the noobs from the vets - how each one handles them. Vets will look at the data, analyze it and make adjustments to the next drop. Noobs - get all fuckin bent outta shape and wonder what in the fuck just happened! This is when you need to take a step back - look at what happened and come back here to ask for help. Don't drop again until you know what happened - how to fix it - and what to do if it happens again. 5. When asking a question - don't leave anything out!!!!! Ok - so you're a noob. You've been trolling the forum for a while and you see people getting hammered for asking questions. Because you don't know much you might think "wow, these guys are dicks! This guy asks a question and the whole forum jumped his shit." Well - from time to time that might happen but there's a reason for it. Most of the stuff you want/need to learn took the members here a long time to learn and it was 'back in the day' when very few mailers talked about this stuff. So when someone comes in here asking "where can I get a GI friendly server" and leaves it at that, you'll not see too many members posting about where they buy their servers. Know why? Cuz some green pea noob can really fuck things up at a host who is 'tolerant' of compliant email marketers. And this is only an example. When it comes to a little more technical question, don't be vague with your question either. Be bold enough to spill the beans on what you did, what happened and what you need help with. The more information you post in your question, the more the members here will be able to help you. This shouldn't be a game of 20 questions to get out of you the REAL reason your drop failed or you got blocked and the only way we can help is if we know what you did. I think you'll find that while you might be a little embarrassed initially, the responses you get will quickly help you overcome that and you'll pick up some great tips along the way. You might even get a PM from someone pointing you to a good host from time to time! The vets in this forum deal with setbacks every week. For you noobs it's more frequently, I know. Just remember that this is a learned skill and it's one like any other worth having: it takes time to acquire! As soon as you see this and can adapt your mindset to this I think you'll find the little things that used to make you want to pull your hair out aren't that big of a deal any more. You'll be able to see your progression via better delivery, better earnings and more help coming from the world class emailers in this forum. There are some guys in this forum so fucking smart it's unreal. To be part of this from the start, to benefit from others taking time out of THEIR day to post here but for no other reason than helping a noob - is something you just can't put a price tag on. I really hope that this serves a few of you well. Advice is something you can take or leave - it's up to you. I deal with noobs and vets all day and I hear a lot of the same things from both. So know that you're not really in this by yourself. When the time comes you can help someone out, remember who helped you along the way and got you to where you are. Don't lose sight of the fact that you will learn every day and one day you'll be the vet that all the noobs come to for help. And I really do hope that you make it so don't quit on email the first time you fail. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the game! There's plenty to go around for all of us! :tee:
I don't comment very often, and even less often agree with Mr Push, but this is right on. Should be required reading for every newcomer to MF
This needs to be made a sticky in the noob section. "You must spread some reputation around before giving it to PushSend again."
Push - excellent post. You more or less summed up the real world of email that most beginner's don't want to face. Nobody wants to take the time to build a real openers or clickers list, they think they can drop to crappy co reg data and make a small fortune overnight. Quality is so much more important than quality when it comes to data and how you mail...
Fantastic post. I have been in the mailing game for nearly a month with Push and in that time I have learnt a lot, made mistakes, gotten breakthroughs and still going strong. The most important thing in this business is to have a mentor who knows what they are doing so that you can learn the ropes quickly. Mailing is a business and so should be treated as one.
Great Post for starters like me, Will definitely follow the Pros & Cons you described above. Thank Man
Thanks Must read for a NOOB....after reading this i don have problem to say im one hell of a noob too! but after reading this im motivated enough to handle the bad days! Thanks Push..thank you very much!!
Yes, a great post. Nice work Push. The most beautiful of this post is that it can be applied to almost every new business different from mailing. So one advice to the noobs. If you didn't own at least one business, you have to stick very closely to what is written here. Otherwise you are doomed. None can do a man what he can to himself by his own.
Very good instruction. I've always been proud to be a n00b wherever I was. And you're right, most n00bs give up long before they can have any kind of good rep. Great advice!
