How To Make BIG PROFITS. from a small mailing list!

Transcription

1 How To Make BIG PROFITS from a small mailing list! The Proven Step by Step System anyone can follow to maximize the profits from ANY list... no matter how small! By Charlie Page Owner of... CharliePage.com Directory of Ezines Follow Up Selling Systems Article Marketing Live Ezine Advertising Live. All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of the publisher. NOTE: This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Distribution or duplication by any means is a violation of International copyright law. No resale rights are conveyed with this book. You may not sell, give away or otherwise share the content of this ebook with any party for any reason. Page 1

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 3 Does Size Matter?... 3 The Key Is Relationship... 4 How To Build Your List... 6 Building a list from the visitors to your site... 6 Building a list by buying subscribers from a professional list building company... 9 Building a list by working together with other site owners Placing ads (either free or paid) in order to build your list from traffic sources you would otherwise never reach How To Get People To Ask For Your Information Why You Must Never Give Too Many Freebies For Subscribing How To Cultivate Your Mailing List Introduce Yourself Only Recommend Products You Know Work Know Your Audience Tell Them What To Expect Personalize Your Mailings Let Them Hear Your Voice Meet Their Needs Reward Their Loyalty How To Manage Your Mailing List How Often To Send Your Message What To Send When To Send It How To Send It Formatting Your Message Conclusion and Further Action Page 2

3 Introduction If you have been online for more than an hour, you ve heard some Internet marketer say, The money is in the list! That sounds good, and most people agree that they would like to have a list if they had a choice. But what most people really need is to know HOW to do that, and how to do it in such a way that it doesn t take over their lives. And that is why this report exists. To give you the systematic procedures for building and profiting from your own mailing list. Having your own mailing list, a group of subscribers who know and trust you, is the #1 marketing method on the Internet today. This is marketing at it s finest. Note: There are many ways and reasons to build a mailing list. For the purpose of clarity, everything you read here can apply to you, whether you send follow up s occasionally, have a pre-loaded autoresponder follow up series, publish an ezine, or use a completely different method. Does Size Matter? One common misconception about having a mailing list of your own is that it has to be very large before you can make any money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, small mailing lists can be wildly profitable if you develop the list correctly. And that is what this report teaches. You should know that there are many online marketers today -- not gurus but regular people -- who do very well with lists of 5000 to 20,000. I think your first goal should be 1000, because experience says that 1000 is the level at which one starts to make substantial profits. Page 3

4 NOTE: The word substantial is open to interpretation; so let me be very specific. One client of mine earned $750 from one mailing to her list of about 1000 people. This was for a $20 product, not a high-ticket seminar type product. To my way of thinking, earning $750 on one that offered a small ticket product is substantial indeed. To be clear, there are people online today who make what seem to be outrageous claims about lists of under 1000 people generating profits in the tens of thousands with but a single . Be very careful when you listen to these claims, for there is more here than meets the eye. I have yet to see any marketer build a list of less than 1000 new people (who express an interest in a product and join a list to learn more) and then cause that list to make tens of thousands of dollars from a single . What I have seen are marketers who have lists of less than 1000 previous buyers of high priced products, to which they can send one and make large profits. Of course, this type of list is profitable. The difference here is vital! Don t think that you can build a list of under 1000 people from scratch and be making $10,000 or more from a single in short order. That s just not the Real World. But you CAN build a list of thousands in a short order, develop the list the right way, and go on to make handsome profits in a very reasonable period of time. The key is to put the right practices in place, practices that make time your ally and help you maximize the value of every visitor or commercial contact you make. The Key Is Relationship The focus of this report is building your own mailing list, and developing a relationship with your list that causes them to like you, trust you and buy from you. Does it sound odd to you when I say that relationship is the key? The reason that you can have a list of thousands, even hundreds of Page 4

5 thousands, and still maintain a relationship, is that is a highly personal way of communicating. The key here is to realize that there is no difference between writing an to your sister or brother and writing an to your list. In fact, the more personal your writing, within reason, the better your list will respond. We ll get into exactly what to say, and what to avoid, very soon. For most people, the Internet is a big, impersonal world of websites that provide information. While the ability to find the answer to almost any question from the convenience of your computer is nice, it s not a warm and friendly environment in which to work or play. We mostly surf alone. Your s can solve that. Your s can be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale world. Your s can offer honest insight; they can lead your reader to know what they need to do next in their business, their life, or any other area you choose to write about. They can be a welcome relief from the otherwise sterile Internet environment. Through s to your list, you can create a valuable relationship, a friendship really, that will reach across the globe and last for as many years as you choose to write. It is my firm belief that it is the relationship you develop with your list that will generate the profits you desire. More than giving deep insight, insider information, hidden secrets, or the other things that so many online gurus claim they offer, when you choose to offer ask questions, offer open insights and honest opinions, and operate from a place where you want your reader (your friend) to win every time, you will have created a powerful relationship that will benefit both you and your reader. And that is a powerful and good thing indeed. Page 5

6 Now let s look at exactly how to build your list, and develop a relationship that benefits you and your reader, and stands the test of time. This report is divided into three sections. 1. How to build and manage your list. 2. How to cultivate your list. 3. How to manage your list. How To Build Your List When it comes to list building there is a boatload of hype on the Internet. When you remove the bull, there are really just a handful of ways to build a list. Almost all list-building techniques can be included in one of these broad categories. 1. Building a list from the visitors to your site. 2. Buying subscribers from a professional list building company. 3. Working together with other site owners and other list owners to capture names from their traffic. 4. Placing ads (either free or paid) in order to build your list from traffic sources you would otherwise never reach. Each of these is important. Using all of them together (which is what most professional marketers do) can create a powerful list in a very short period of time. Let s look at each one. Building a list from the visitors to your site The first and best place to look for building a mailing list is your own website or blog. Visitors to your site don t end up there by accident. They came to your site to learn more about what you offer. And that means they are MUCH more likely to ask for, and respond to, your follow up information. Page 6

7 In most cases they saw an ad, found you in a search engine, read one of your articles, follow you on social media or were referred by a friend. No matter how they get to your site, they are prime prospects for learning more about what you do. And the way you give them that information is with follow up by asking them to join your list. If you don t have a site or blog now, building a list is a good reason to get one. There are many other good reasons, such as controlling the page your visitor sees, the ability to steer visitors to any site you want after they visit your site, and more. But the ability to build a list is reason enough to get a site or start a blog. Even if you have no HTML skills, you can set up a Wordpress blog in a day using most hosting companies. Even easier, use a free service like Blogger.com Every site on the Internet gets some traffic. And every site owner I know spends a considerable amount of time and effort to get more traffic to their site. I ll bet that you want more traffic too. But getting more traffic isn t always easy, and more traffic is not always the answer to the question of how to make more sales. Making the most of your current visitors is important too. And offering follow up information, offering your visitor a chance to get on your mailing list, is the first step to maximizing the value of every visitor. Here are seven key techniques you can use to get the highest number of list signups possible from your existing traffic whether you get 10 or 1000 visitors a day. 1. Put a signup form on the top right hand side of your main web page or blog. Studies have proven that this is the most effective location. If you have navigation links on the left, consider putting it there instead. The key here is to have to box VERY visible to visitors. 2. Add a signup form to every page of your site. It sometimes takes visitors a few minutes to feel comfortable enough to trust us Page 7

8 with their address. What happens when they do feel comfortable enough to fill out a form but they aren t on your front page? If they have to search for the form, you will lose them. If they have to return to the home page to find the form, they will lose their place on your site. Both are bad. Make it easy to signup from every page! 3. Use a popup on entry. I know we all love to hate popups. But they work, period. Every test I ve ever run on popups has shown that they increase newsletter signups to your list dramatically. Today s popups aren t the old in your face type that never go away. Because of new technology, you can have an attractive popup window that is effective and not offensive, and will not be blocked by any popup blocker. NOTE: Studies show that the popups to which people object are the third party ads that continue to popup, not popups from the site they are visiting. If your popup is relevant to your site you will do well. Our choice for this by far is PopUp Domination. Popup Domination offers attractive popup windows that can t be blocked by toolbars or browsers, and allow you to control how often, where, and when they appear. Visit Popup Domination using this link. Bottom line: If you aren t using popups, you are losing subscribers. 4. Use a pop-out window on exit from your site. This is the same idea as a popup on entry, but it only popups up when a person leaves your site. Some people put a survey here. I m sure you ve seen the May I ask why you aren t buying made famous by Alex Mandossian. It s a great idea, but unless you are using that technique, then please do use a pop out to make one last offer for your free information. This really works. HINT: You can create what is called an order trapper pop out so that Page 8

9 people who click your order button don t see the pop out window. 5. Add links to key points in your web copy where people can ask for more information. It s a pure fact that the VAST majority of people don t buy the first time. But they are interested or they wouldn t be there. You can capitalize on that interest by adding a few well-placed click here to learn more free links inside your web copy. These links look just like the rest of the wording, except that your visitor can click them. When a visitor clicks one of these links, your subscription box opens in a new window, so they can subscribe and go back to reading. 6. Use testimonials for your follow up information or ezine. People love testimonials and using them on your site will make a big difference in sales and signups too. Adding a testimonial about the quality of your follow up information lets your visitor know they are safe asking for more information, and that your information is valuable. 7. Give a gift but not too much. We re going to cover this in detail below, but suffice it to say here that giving a gift for subscribing does work in most situations. Use the above seven techniques on your site today, and you will make time your ally, as more and more visitors subscribe to your follow up system. Now let s look at technique #2, the often misunderstood process of coregistration. Building a list by buying subscribers from a professional list building company Many people have heard about buying lists. There is great confusion on this subject, so I m going to try to be crystal clear. VERY IMPORTANT: ALL lists that you buy on CD (or on the Internet) where a company sells you 1,000,000 (or more) names for a very low Page 9

10 price are spam lists. NEVER buy this type of list, for it can ruin your reputation online, waste valuable time you could spend doing real marketing, and could even land you in jail! Never spam under any circumstances. Now that you know what not to do, let s look at how buying subscriber can work for you. There are companies on the Internet who know how to build big lists fast. They do it so well that they do it for a living. These are called coregistration companies, and they can be very helpful to your bottom line. Here s how it works. The co-registration company pays to place their ad on high traffic websites. Their ad is somewhat generic, but still very compelling. They often offer a free gift, or free information about a certain topic, like weight loss. All they ask is that you fill in their form to get more information. So far, it s not a lot different from what you will be doing on your site. Here s the difference. Once the person subscribes with them the person is offered the chance to subscribe to other lists too. When they do, the people who own those lists pay a fee for each subscriber. Let s say John owns a co-registration company and places ads on a large website we will call Site A. Now Jane visits Site A and subscribes to John s list. Instead of seeing a traditional thank you page she now sees a page that offers for her to join five other lists as well. If she does then the people who own the lists she joins will pay John a fee. This is an incredibly profitable business model for John because he not only builds his list but he makes immediate cash too. He takes the risk to buy the advertising and set up the co-registration system but is paid handsomely if it works. Using co-registration to build your list can be very good or very bad, depending on what you do after you get the list, and the questions you ask before buying the list. Here are the questions you should ask before buying. Page 10

11 To how many people will any one name be sold? If it s very many people at all, the poor person who thought they were subscribing to one list will get dozens of s and probably accuse everyone of spamming or drop that address. On what date was the name gathered? One key to making coregistration work is getting information to the subscriber very quickly after they subscribe. If the co-registration company is selling information 30 days old, watch out. Will you be showing only my opt in form or will there be many list choices? The fewer choices the subscriber has when they are offered the chance to join other lists the better for you. Assuming the co-registration company will answer these questions to your satisfaction, you will need to act quickly on the names that you receive. Here s a list of what to do with the names you buy from a coregistration company. Introduce yourself immediately. They need to hear from you quickly, before they forget they even asked for information. Tell them how they can leave the list. This is a must. You must clearly state how they can leave your list, and must provide a link at the bottom of every message where they can do that. Keep your messages short. Once they are on your main list, you can send normal messages. In this stage, you want to woo them onto your main list with short, helpful messages on the topic on which they expected to receive information. Get them in a conversation by asking questions. One great way to warm up a cold list is by asking questions. You can ask what they need, ask how you can help them, or ask them to tell you something about them that will help you be of service to them. Asking questions is the best sales technique on the planet, and lets them know you are more than just another marketer Page 11

12 pushing products. Offer them a gift to subscribe to your main mailing list. Offering gifts specific to the reason they joined a list works very well. The goal with co-registration names is not to mail to them until they buy or leave (although, sadly, that s how some marketers do it) but rather to convince them to join your main mailing list by offering them a taste of what regular list members receive. Once you get someone to proactively join your main list from a coregistration list, the odds are you ll have a subscriber who will both stay on your main list, and buy something in time. NOTE: You should know that MOST of the names you will buy will not join your main list. Buying co-registration names is a bulk business, and one where getting 15% to convert to a main list is considered wildly successful. Costs for co-registration vary from a few pennies per name up to $15 per name, depending on how many people are sold the names, how fresh or recent, the names are, and how much information is provided. Shop carefully, and be sure to check the reputation of the co-registration company if you choose to go this route. Building a list by working together with other site owners The idea here is that you get visitors that I ll never see, and I get visitors you ll never see. So, we make an agreement that allows us each to benefit from the other s traffic. The most common form of this is what is called a thank you page private co-registration. That s a fancy way of saying that I ll show your subscription form on the thank you page of my website, and you ll show my subscription form on the thank you page of your site. Page 12

13 The thank you pages involved here can be found in a variety of places. Each one has the common denominator that they are viewed after a visitor takes action. This is good, because studies show that visitors who take one action are likely to take another action. Here are some common thank you pages where you can place your subscription form. After a sale is made. After someone subscribes to an ezine. After they download a free gift. After they download a product they purchased. After they complete a survey. After they enter a support ticket in a support center. After they create a username for a membership site. The possibilities here are endless, and this is one of the most underused marketing methods around. If you can find a site that compliments your site, these arrangements can be a powerful list building method. Another option is called a list swap. A list swap is simply an arrangement between two list owners to send a solo ad (in most cases) for the other. Let s say John and Jane both have lists of 500 people. John sends Jane s ad to his list and in return Jane sends John s ad to her list. No money changes hands - they just swap solo ads and everybody wins! But what happens if Jane has 1000 subscribers and John has only 500? Then John sends to his list twice for every time Jane sends to her list once. There are sites online devoted to nothing more than helping you find list swap partners. Some are free while others charge a fee. If you are going to use one of them be sure to ask these questions before agreeing to a swap. Page 13

14 1. Know how often the other person sends solo ads to their list. If they blast their list every day your results will be poor. 2. What type of offers work best with their list? You want to match the offer you make to what their list responds to if you can. 3. How did they build their list? If they built their list using questionable methods like safelists then your results will likely be poor. List swaps can be incredibly profitable or incredibly disappointing. The more you know before agreeing to one the better the chances of yours being profitable. HOT TIP: I recommend you always send traffic from list swaps to your own squeeze page and not to a sales page. Building your list matters most! Placing ads (either free or paid) in order to build your list from traffic sources you would otherwise never reach Sometimes it s hard to sell our products and services using advertising. If that s true for you, you might consider advertising for subscribers instead of trying to make direct sales. It s clear that people like free stuff. Offering your free follow up information is a softer sale than trying to sell your product, and it gets them on your list so that you can build a relationship with them. While many people hesitate at the idea of buying advertising for the reason of giving away free information, this technique works very well. If you see the logic of getting 200 subscribers as much as making one sale (because you know some of those 200 will eventually buy much more than 1 product) then advertising for subscribers might be for you. Page 14

15 A word of warning: Don t waste time placing free ads for subscribers unless you are offering a very powerful freebie for subscribing. People who visit free ad sites are a particular group who are usually looking only for freebies. My experience has been that this type of person does not make a good subscriber, won t buy anything, and only stays on your list hoping for more free stuff. You can get subscribers with free ads, but you may find that your time is much better spent elsewhere. No matter what technique you use, the key is to get people to raise their hands and say, Yes, I want more information. Only when we get permission to send information do we succeed. Whether you use one or all of the techniques listed above, here s what you ll need to do to get people to give you their permission to follow up. How To Get People To Ask For Your Information The most important thing to realize about getting people to ask for more information is that you understand their motivation. And there is only ONE motivation that is consistent on the Internet. Your visitor wants to known what is in it for them! You must appeal to their self-interest if you are to get their permission to send more information. Here are ten ways to get people to ask for more information. Remember, they came to your site looking for something, but most of them won t buy the first time. In many cases, the reason they don t buy is that they need to know more, so offering them more information is a logical thing to do for any site owner. To get people to ask for more information, you can Page 15

16 1. Just ask In some cases, just providing a sign up box does the trick. 2. Offer a unique gift If you offer a gift for subscribing, try to make it something that they don t already have. 3. Sell them Yep, you have to sell them on why they should take your free information. The idea of selling someone on taking something free sounds wrong to most people, and for good reason. But this is the Internet, and the fact is, you have to convince them to take your free information. A short list of benefits usually does the trick. 4. Ask them what they need, and then give it to them This is the survey approach and it works very well. The key here is to ask a compelling question to draw them into the conversation, then offer them more information, like the answers of other people who took the survey. The way they get that information, of course, is by subscribing. 5. Don t just tell your story Remember, your website must be about your visitor, not you. While you must convey how you can help them solve a problem, the more you talk about them, the better. This holds true when asking for them to subscribe as well. 6. Tease them Revealing just a part of what they will learn from your follow up information sometimes generates enough curiosity for your visitor to take action and subscribe. One technique that works well is to ask a series of questions, then offer the answers once they subscribe. 7. Bribe them This is the oldest trick in the book, and highly effective when done well. The key here is to offer something of value, not the same old freebie that everyone offers. Trial memberships work very well in this way. 8. Challenge them This is a hard to use technique, but challenging them can work if done right. The key here is to keep it friendly, light, and fun. Something like, Think you know the #1 sales technique on the Internet? Click here to find out! Of course, the click here goes to Page 16

17 your subscription form. 9. Use testimonials No one like to go first. Make your visitor feel comfortable by telling them that many people have asked for more information and received real help. Testimonials do this better than any other technique. 10.Tell them what to expect The more specific you are about what they will receive, when they will receive it, and how often you will contact them, the more comfortable they will feel. And that will lead to increased signups. HOT TIP: Always tell your visitor that their information is safe with you, and that you will not sell or share their information with anyone, ever. You don t have to shout this, but you do need to put wording on your signup form that tells them they will be safe. Providing a privacy page on your site is another important step in letting your visitor know that you respect their privacy and will never misuse their information. The key to getting people to sign up for your information is to ask them often, use a variety of techniques, and never make them feel like they are risking something by signing up. Why You Must Never Give Too Many Freebies For Subscribing There is a hidden danger in offering too many freebies to subscribers in exchange for their subscription. This is a common mistake in marketing, and a logical one. It makes perfect sense to load up your potential subscribers with as many good things as you can afford to give them. After all, doing so shows your generous nature, and makes it more likely that you will get a high percentage of visitors who do subscribe, right? Right And wrong. Page 17

18 While tempting visitors will a long list of goodies might get more people to subscribe, it sends two completely wrong messages. 1. You can t get subscribers without bribing them. 2. You are a source of freebies. The bottom line is this, if you give a ton of freebies in exchange for a simple subscription, you will end up with a list of freebie seekers. When that happens, selling anything to the people on your list will become much more difficult. This is the same idea behind not always offering a discount on what you sell. If you are constantly running a sale or special offer, people will wait for the next sale or special offer to act. That s not what you want. What you want is a list of people who respond to you because you provide great information and solve their problems. HOT TIP: This is the implied agreement between your and your reader. You will provide top-flight information, information that solves your readers problems, and in exchange, they will buy the products you advertise and recommend. While completely unspoken, this agreement exists in every subscriber/publisher relationship. Using freebies to attract visitors is a valid technique that many marketers use. But giving too much attracts the wrong type of subscriber. If your goal is to build a responsive list of buyers, begin that relationship by offering something of value, but not throw in the kitchen sink. Also, remember to change your free gift offer from time to time. This lets visitors know that your site is fresh, and sends the subtle message that nothing you offer lasts forever. And that s a great message to send in the beginning because they will remember that Page 18

19 when you announce that a sale or special offer ends on a particular date. How To Cultivate Your Mailing List Once people ask to be on your list, whether that s an ezine subscription, a request for more information, taking you up on a free download, or something completely different, it s time for the relationship building to begin. What you do immediately after someone joins your list, and what you do in the first several weeks following his or her subscription, will set the tone for the rest of your relationship. As you can imagine, this is where paying attention and being very deliberate about what you do can pay very big dividends indeed. Introduce Yourself They asked for your information. While you are not the subject of the information (unless you are selling yourself as a consultant or coach) you are the messenger, and that s just as important. The Internet is cold and impersonal. You can set a warm and friendly tone in the very beginning of the relationship by simply writing one paragraph about yourself so your reader can get to know you. The key here is to be personable without being too personal. What you want to give readers is a sense of who you are in a way that they can relate to, without opening up the old high school yearbook and showing off your science or football awards. Here are some things that your readers might find interesting in your short, one-paragraph bio. Where you live. How long you have been online. The types of online businesses you have experience with. Your hobbies or pets. Page 19

20 Your goal for the information they are about to receive. Likewise, there is some information that you are just better off not sharing. Here are some types of information I would not include. Your age. Your home address. Your home phone number. Anything (and I mean anything) about your children. How much money you make or want to make. Your religion or worldview. Your political viewpoints, unless you are distributing political information. The goal here is not to color your personality beige; it s to be business-like and personable at the same time. Far from manipulation, what you write about yourself tells the reader who you are, and a bit about why you are providing them this information. That s an important thing for them to know in the beginning of your online relationship, and sets the tone for future messages. Only Recommend Products You Know Work While some find this suggestion a bit controversial, recommending only products that you have direct experience with, or very close indirect experience with, will practically ensure that your audience buys from you on a regular basis. Here s why. You know this in your heart, and it probably won t come as a big surprise to you, but the products and services we all buy on the Internet are often disappointing at best. Sales letters that make the product being offered seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread are the order of the day. Page 20

21 Many sites put most of their effort into making sales, knowing that most consumers are too busy or lazy to ask for a refund, and knowing that they can get away with producing an inferior product. This situation is so rampant that it s lead to a very high level of distrust online. It s also one of the reasons that a site that converts 2 out of 100 visitors is a smashing success, while a conversion rate that low would put any offline business out of business! Imagine only 2 out of every 100 visitors to a Walmart making a purchase! They would go out of business in a month! People are confused. They are afraid of being ripped off, of making a mistake and not being able to get their money back. Many (if not most) of them have been burned by a product, service, or business opportunity that promised the moon and delivered only disappointment. And that s where you come in. You are their white knight of truth!! You are their clearinghouse of right information. You are their Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval! If you announce to your list very clearly, and often, that you only recommend products that you know work (either by having used them or knowing someone who has used them) you will position yourself to be the person your subscribers trust for unbiased, quality information. Can there be a stronger selling position than this? If there is, I haven t found it. The key here is your personal integrity. It goes without saying that if you ever violate this, the deal is off and it will take a very long time indeed to rebuild that lost trust, if it can indeed be rebuilt. Page 21

22 Another reason to only recommend products you know will work is avoiding what I call the also ran syndrome. The term also ran comes from the world of racing where they announce who came in first, second, third, and who also ran. I call those marketers who hear about a product, grab the pre-written solo , then blast it to their list as fast (and often) as they can also ran marketers. These people do not have their subscribers best interest in mind. They just want to make money. One person actually called this technique (and forgive me for this it s not my wording) the don t give a cr*p technique. How insulting is that? He was actually proud of not caring but only caring about his bottom line. Sad really. When you care about your audience, and you recommend products that you know work the way they should, then offer them to your list, your list will buy them in droves! This is the same technique I ve used for years with my own list, and we routinely see conversion rates of up to 41% on the selling s we sell. To my way of thinking, that s proof positive that this idea works, and works very well. If you are going to use this idea, be sure to include it in your welcome . When you are telling your readers a bit about yourself is the perfect time to say that you are doing this, and why. If experience is any guide, your readers will reward you many times for your commitment to what is in their best interest. Know Your Audience Knowing your audience is as important, or more important, as them knowing you. The more you know about your audience, the more accurately you will be able to predict what they will buy, and when they will buy it. Note: Cultivating a mailing list is not guesswork. Once you have cultivated and managed your list for a while, you can expect to be able to forecast what offers your list will respond to, and on what level they will Page 22

23 respond. When you reach this stage, your list will truly be your most valuable business asset. The only way to get to know your list is to ask. There are any number of ways to ask your list things that will give you insight into their needs. And that s an important point. Never ask an idle question. Only ask questions which, when answered, will give you insight into how you can meet the needs of your list members. Online surveys are probably the most popular, and easiest to use, way of asking your list what s on their mind and what they need. What you ask them is a different matter. Here s a list of things I ve asked my lists over the years. I believe that knowing these things about my list has been one of the reasons the list performs so well. What is your price sensitivity? How long have you been online? What are your goals online? What is the next product you intend to buy? What is the best product you have ever bought? What is the worst product you have ever bought? How many affiliate programs have you tried online? What is your favorite marketing technique online? What failed miserably for you from a marketing standpoint? If we could spend 1 hour alone, talking about nothing but your business and how to make it successful, what would you ask. One thing to keep in mind is that when you ask your list questions, they are giving you not only answers that can guide your marketing, but they are giving you their time, the most precious asset of all. It is a completely appropriate to reward them for that time by offering a gift to each one who completes the survey. HINT: Don t forget to use a co-registration form on the thank you page of the survey as we discussed above. These are responsive people, and will be a valuable addition to any list. You could score some marketing points with a complimentary site here. Page 23

24 When asking questions or taking surveys or polls, it s important to let your list know when the poll will be closing. If you can, it s also a great idea to announce the results of your survey to your list. HOT TIP: If you can make time, writing up a short report about the survey (why you took it, a list of questions, something about the results) makes a great giveaway for getting new people to join your list. No matter how you do it, take time to get to know the people on your list. Only by meeting their needs will you succeed, and you can t hit a target you can t see. So get to know as much as you can, and watch your results increase month by month as you cultivate a powerful, responsive list. Tell Them What To Expect Most people like to know what to expect when they agree to something. Your readers are no different. The more you tell them about what they are agreeing to by subscribing, the happier they will be. There are a few things that are vital for you to tell subscribers immediately upon receiving their subscription. Your welcome letter is the perfect place to do this, and makes it super-easy to be clear with them. Here are some of the things readers want to know when subscribing to your information. How often will you be sending s? This is the big one folks. If you indicate that you have a weekly ezine, then mail to them five days a week, you will lose subscribers. What will the s contain? No one will sign up for a series of sales pitches. If you promise information about how they can improve their golf swing, be sure to provide that before asking them to buy anything. Will your messages be in plain text or HTML format? Often overlooked, telling them this helps prevent readers from Page 24

25 confusing your message from spam. What subject line will you use? Many people like to use the same subject line beginning every time so that list members can recognize or filter their messages. What From address will the contain? One way to beat the spam filters is to get your subscribers to whitelist your address or add it to their address book. This is an important step that should not be overlooked. The more you let your list know about what to expect from you, the better they will do when it comes to finding, opening, and responding to your messages. In this day of spam and too much , using this simple precaution can make all the difference. Personalize Your Mailings Everyone knows by now that addressed Dear Bob gets more response than addressed Dear Reader. But there are ways to go beyond the basic personalization that let your reader know that you know something about them, and care about meeting their needs. Here are three things I suggest to make your messages more personal. 1. Share your experiences with products, both good and bad. Nothing makes you appear more human to your list than admitting that something didn t work for you. I m not saying you should fail on purpose, and use that to make your list like you. What I am saying is that sharing the bad with the good shows the people on your list that you are as imperfect as they, and that you re honest enough to admit mistakes. When s the last time you heard a guru admit that something they tried didn t work as expected? Page 25

26 Being transparent with the people on your list is a powerful thing. 2. If you send a pre-written for a program (and you might some of them are well-written) be sure to add a personal comment at the top. I ve added this to some of my selling s. Just a note to say that the message below was not written by me, but I wish it had been! I m sending this along untouched because it conveys exactly how I feel about the product. I like this product, and think you will like it too. Almost every time I use that type of message I get thank you notes from people on the list that appreciate the human touch. 3. When you use surveys, add the results of that survey data to your message to let your list know why you are promoting a specific product or idea. This is a powerful sales technique, and it lets your list know that you are paying attention to what they say. Now that s a win-win! Personalization is a lot less about adding the Dear [firstname] tag than it is about writing every message as if you were writing it to an individual. Write your messages that way, and your list will feel your warmth, rewarding you with business and loyalty for literally years to come. Let Them Hear Your Voice This is perhaps my #1 piece of advice for any list owner. It s what the genie told Aladdin and what countless parents have told their son or daughter on the first day of school. Be yourself! Page 26

27 When people join your list they don t know you. They want to know more about your offer, and they know they are going to hear that from you. And they are willing to get to know you. So let em! It s the little things that let our personalities shine through, and letting your personality shine through is what this piece of advice is all about. The thing to avoid, and I know you know this, is trying to sound like someone else. The problem with that technique (and you would be shocked at how many list owners try it) is that you can t sustain it for long. Can you imagine the torment of having to think I need to say it this way because that s how Ms. Big Time Guru would sound every time you write something? I m not saying that you should not try your best, or make improvement over time. We are all works in progress and improvement is a good thing. The bottom line here is to just be you. Honest advice written in poor grammar will sell more than the most polished prose that sounds false. The key is to relax, be yourself, and know that, no matter how well or poorly you write or speak, there will be people who like you and people who don t like you. And there s not much that you can do about that especially if you are trying to fake it! Meet Their Needs If you have read this far, you know how I feel about this, so I ll be brief. The absolute best list cultivation technique I can give you is this. Meet THEIR needs! Page 27

28 When my wife and I were married long ago, someone gave us the best advice I ve ever heard. He or she (I wish I could remember who) said this to me. If you spend your time meeting her needs, and she spends her time meeting your needs, neither of you will ever need to be selfish. I ve seen many marketers come and go over the years, and can tell you that the ones who succeed over time are the ones who are meeting people s needs. There will always be the flash-in-the-pan successes who write a hot book and then make a lot of money in a short period of time. But these people won t last online, just like they don t last offline. Let your list know that you want to meet their needs. Tell them again and again, and soon they will know that you mean it, and begin to open up to you, telling what they really need, and giving you the chance to sell it to them. And that is a very powerful situation one that you can achieve if you try and one that will reward you with an easy living for many years to come. Reward Their Loyalty You list members are giving you the most valuable asset they own their time. You can reward them for giving you that gift by rewarding them for their loyal readership. Here are three ways to do that. Give them something free when you can. At least 2 to 3 times a year, surprise them with a free gift. You can use resale rights packages to find items to give, or create something original. The more valuable and useful the gift, the better. Give them a great tip when you can. We all have experience that can benefit others. If you discover a great resource, or a way of doing something that is effective and save time, share it with your list. Give them a great price when you can. Few things are more powerful that negotiating a special price for the members of your list. Page 28

29 I ve done this by asking the creator of a product if I could offer a special price to my list when I bought resale rights. Another method is the prerelease offer, much like the one that might have brought you to this very report. As you go through your day, be on the lookout for ways to reward your list members. Reward them often, and they will reciprocate with long-term, loyal readership. How To Manage Your Mailing List How you manage your list how often you send them messages, the content of those messages, as well as a few other key factors will have a major impact on your level of profits. Manage your list well, and your readers will eagerly await the next message from you, confident that it will contain something to make their life better. There have been times in my business when I have been away due to illness or family emergencies. Every time that happens many good people on my list write to ask why I ve gone silent. They like what I share and want to hear more. For that I am eternally grateful. Manage your list poorly, and your list will quit responding and very conveniently forget that they were the ones who subscribed. So how can you ensure (to borrow a phrase from Dan Kennedy) that you are a welcome guest and not an unwelcome pest? You manage your list very carefully, using the techniques found below. How Often To Send Your Message There is a great debate in the Internet marketing (and ezine publishing) community about how often to send a message. I ve seen ezines, and marketers, succeed and fail with a wide variety of schedules. Page 29

30 The right answer to the frequency question is, as is so often the case, a simple one you send messages as often as you told your list you would send them! The key here is to avoid any misunderstanding by accidentally leading your list to believe one thing, then doing something different. If you know how often you will send messages before you build your list you can avoid this question altogether. You can also go to the head of the class, because 99% of marketers miss this critical step. I certainly did when I started out online. Here s a way to handle things if you don t know how often you will send messages before you build your list. Simply tell your list that you will send occasional messages, and commit to sending messages only when you really have something to say. This tells your subscriber that you won t flood them with messages, and that you are taking your relationship with them seriously. Committing to quality works every time. With all of that said, here is what my testing (and observing literally thousands of publishers) has proven to be true. If you send messages less frequently than every 10 days, your subscribers tend to forget you. I think this is due to the amount of that everyone receives. If you want to win the profits game with a small list, you have to keep YOUR name at the top of your reader s mind. Sending more than three messages in a week is risky. If you send more than three messages a week, you run a real risk of both people unsubscribing, and getting complaints as well. Three messages a week is a lot, especially when you ve committed to quality message content. NOTE: If you send more than two messages a week, be sure to Page 30

31 vary the length of the messages and use completely different subject lines, so your audience doesn t think they are all the same message. Once a week is the minimum in my opinion. Sending messages too close together is the same as sending too many messages in the mind of the reader. Readers have a very in the moment focus, and they tend to see what s happening now as what always happens. So, if you send them too many messages in any particular week without a good explanation, they will tend to see you as sending too many messages all the time. I suggest spacing messages 2 days apart. If you send many messages, keep them short. I can t explain why this is true, but readers feel obligated to read what we write, and when the amount they have to read is backed up, they get angry. In all things, you have to test to see what will work for you. But keeping faith with readers by sending the number of messages you said you would send, and being considerate of them by varying the message lengths, are a good start toward cultivating a strong relationship with your readers. What To Send When it comes to sending to prospective customers, and existing customers, for the purpose of making sales, you have a wide array of happy choices. Here are some of the methods that are successful now, along with the pros and cons of each. Page 31

32 FORMAT PROS CONS An ezine People love ezines and are used to receiving them. Since ezines cover a variety of topics, you won t be seen as constantly selling. Also, you can sell ads and will be approached for joint ventures. Publishing an ezine on a regular basis can be time consuming, especially if you are writing the articles. A follow up series News The information that goes out is only about your product. Easy to write, since you know your product so well, you can get into greater detail about your product with a follow up series, and use testimonials too. Very easy to ask for the order in every message. Very popular if the topic is specific and hard to find. Linking a product to the news story and asking for the order is easy to do. Since the series is only about your product, people who decide they are no longer interested will leave, and you won t have a chance to sell them something else. It s hard to keep a follow up series going very long as compared to an ezine, which can run for years. Very time consuming to produce. You have to find the news, and then write about it, before the general public learns about it. Blogs are a serious competitor here. Page 32