One of the first things you will learn when you venture into marketing online is that “The Money Is In The List”. After filling hundreds of opt-in forms stating that fact and spending hundreds of dollars chasing dreams, I realized that my money was being lost in the list that I joined. The truth is anyone can tell you how to build your list, but not many can tell you how to make your list responsive.
Building a responsive list is a different animal than getting someone to opt-in to your squeeze page. A virtual newbie can purchase a ready-made plr product with a convincing copy that entices a prospect to opt-in. Once that person opts-in to your list the art of managing a list begins. The art of list building is really building trust with the subscriber so that they feel comfortable with the material you deliver.
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Do Not Send Your List Garbage
Building trust however, has nothing to do with sending tons of junk offers for the sole purpose of making money. Eventually that inexperience newbie marketer will either fail from garbage information overload or become experienced enough to realize that you they have been following a spammer. Whether they unsubscribe or not at that point is mute, if you have lost their trust, you have lost their attention.
There are several analogies from various marketers online about how to get your list to become responsive. Many of the top marketers suggest that initially you should send free offers. Some mis-guided marketers translate this information and think that after a few days or weeks of sending free info, they are cleared to send garbage. It does not matter when you decide to bombard your list with unrelated offers, as soon as you start doing so, you will lose their interest.
Test Your Products Before Referring To Others
The key to keeping your list interested in what you are selling is to believe in it yourself. Even more so than just believing in it, you have to test it for yourself first. I don’t know about you, but I feel there is something wrong about simply going to Clickbank and picking any random offers to mail to your lists. Trying the products your refer first, will ensure that you are recommending quality products you believe in.
Stop Acting Like An Autoresponder
Providing your subscriber with quality products is a start but you also have to be a great host. Being a good host means you have to make it personal sometimes. Do not just send emails only when you have something to offer. You can also send an occasional joke, story or inspirational material to help them get through their day. This approach also opens your subscribers to your human side; After all, you are human right?
Communicate With Your Subscribers Offline
When was the last time you talked with one of your subscribers? It is a fact that people correspond better with people they know. Just because you are online marketer does not mean that you can’t communicate offline. Opening communications with your list will only help your response rate. With the many avenues to socialize online, you can even bypass the telephone and keep communications online by using G-talk, Skype or Facebook.
Create Your Own Product
Creating your own product is way to establish credibility. If you add a few more hours a day to the time it takes you write an email, you can create an informational ebook. A product can easily be created by sending a survey to your list to find out what kind of struggles they are having. A professional survey can be created in minutes using a free service like Survey Monkey.
You can then create an e-book properly addressing those issues. Imagine how your list will feel about you, if they actually think that you are concern about them.
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The internet is an information highway full of good and bad information. Your job as a responsible marketer if you do not have your own product is the middleman or affiliate marketer. Your responsibility is to provide information that helps info seekers get to where they are trying to go. Supplying bad information for the sole purpose of making money will eventually lead in failure for you and your subscriber. We all know what happens when the blind leads the blind.
Guest post by Marc Marseille, a local business offline consultant and an online consultant who knows that the term “The Money Is In The List” is a fact. You can read more about his strategies on building responsive opt-in email lists by visiting optin email lists.