list building
Okay lets take stock of where things are at so far after my previous posts on list building (part 1 & part 2):
1. Setup an account with a list management / email marketing provider
2. Create a list and signup box
3. Insert your signup box on your website
4. Have a juicy headline and something valuable as a giveaway
So get those parts done and you’ve got a good foundation setup to begin list building. Now lets talk about the next part of the process: LIST MANAGEMENT/RELATIONSHIP MARKETING.
List management in my opinion is really the art of relationship management, or as Seth Godin and Jeff Bezos puts it ‘relationship marketing. One of the most important things… actually make that THE MOST IMPORTANT THING about list management is that you DO NOT view your list as a bunch of sales prospects that you can simply bark at everytime you want to.
Shift your way of thinking and view them as good friends (in that you shouldnt send hype and spam to your friends) and also see them as a list of paying clients that (so you provide clear and valuable advice all the time).
So with that in mind, you want to provide regular content to your list and expect nothing in return. So rather than send out hype and crap everyday saying ‘you really cant do without this widget/product’ or ‘5 tips to make you an instant millionaire’ think about actual usable information that will benefit your readers. Some people like to broadcast to their list twice a week, others like to do it once a week. Different frequencies work better in certain situations, so I encourage you to research this area and choose what suits your audience best.
You can either create a bunch of content and setup autoresponder emails that will send out automatically when you specify, or you can setup a schedule so that each Tuesday you write an email to your list, or you can simply send out things when you think of something useful. I like to do a combination of all these methods so that list members get autoresponders that are targetted to the niche, they get little snippets when I think of them and a regular monthly newsletter that has the latest info from that subject area.
Oh and I have a ratio that is 5:1 which means that for every 5 pieces of free content/advise I giveaway I like to give 1 sales offer. That’s a really nice balance which will get a healthy return and sales conversion rate from your readers
Dont hype things up, keep the tone friendly and personal. I have a gmail account setup that is used to subscribe to many types of newsletters so that I can keep an eye on how others are communicating with their lists. More often than not, I see broadcast emails from marketers that are just embarassing. They get all excited and turn into salesmen with ADD, touting their service or product with superlatives and animated copy. Quite simply, these marketers believe their own BS and think that their readers will lap up any rott that they email out.
Generally speaking, people aren’t stupid and they know instinctively when someone is trying to sell to them. Dont try to over sell, do the opposite and undersell! Make recommendations, with reasons you can backup, then encourage your readers to consider the purchase for their own motives.
You can be critical, but dont go off on a negative rant! What this means is that humans are suspicious of anyone that is ALWAYS positive, because people aren’t that way 100% of the time. If you can review a product and include some constructive criticism with your list of benefits, your audience will see that you are genuine with your advice. This goes a long way towards building trust and the relationship which is so important to making money from a list.
In summary, the 2nd half of list management is about building trust and a relationship with your readers. Because once you have their trust, they will be far more receptive to your offerings!
From there, I encourage you to interact with your list. Actively survey them on what they want, things you can do better and perhaps suggestions they have for content. Your driving force should be about pleasing your list, finding out what they need most and then giving them exactly that.
If you do all of these steps, then I ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEE that you will be making good amounts of sales and online income. It’s a much more productive method for making money than simply selling a product with a sales page.
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