Building a list of responsive subscribers starts with TARGETING and ALIGNING with the right prospects for your business.
Plain and simple.
And even though it sounds easy, targeting is one of the most under-utilized and under-appreciated facets of list building.
But a highly targeted list building campaign can mean the difference between lucrative list building and a list of people that just costs you money.
Think of it like a bullseye…
…the red center of the bullseye is your target market.
…the black and red surrounding circles are where most people are in their list building.
They take a shot every now and then and when they miss (because they haven’t been practicing), they figure, “oh well, good enough is good enough.”
But then something happens and they notice that their list is quite lifeless and quite unresponsive to their messages.
I call this “a list that was doomed from the start.”
Even before the first opt-in form was set up, this list was doomed.
It was doomed because the target market was never IDENTIFIED and ALIGNED with.
If it had been, then list failure never would have happened.
So instead of this happening to you, start off on the right foot with aligning with the exact, ideal prospect that you want to work with.
There’s a term called the ideal character.
I’m not sure where it stems from – it could be from top copywriters like Gary Halbert (http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/) or maybe Dan Kennedy (http://www.dankennedy.com/), but needless to say, the term perfectly describes what you are looking for.
You want the ideal characters for your business.
Not the ones that could care less about what you do or what you offer.
But the ones that fit your criteria of an ideal customer, perfectly.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR TODAY
1) Ideal customers are your best customers – sit down with a pen and paper or other writing device and create your ideal character.
What do they look like, what do they wear, who are they?
What are their hopes and dreams, their fears?
2) Keep this ideal customer in mind for all of your communications, web forms, free offer creation – you’ll eventually be referring back to him or her when writing your emails.
In the Raving Fans List Building Formula, I take you through the exact steps to identifying your ideal customers and aligning with them so that YOU are irresistible to them.
I don’t just talk about it, I show you.
So the formula is not just a fancy name, it is actually a formula for building a list with the RIGHT prospects for your business.
http://ravingfanslistbuilding.com
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I love how you can take something that sounds big and scary (aligning!!) and turn it into something totally doable. I agree, this is a step that often gets missed. We want big lists so we go out and build them. But big lists don’t mean responsive lists. I’ve done this exercise several times during the course of my years in business (though not at first, hitting wide…) and it’s worth doing regularly because it’s definitely changed for me. But you never know who your perfect person is until you sit down and really think about it. And it can’t be a five minute thing you do while you’re stuck at a traffic light. It has to be for real!
Carol Lynn recently posted..Your Web And Social Efforts Are Part Of Your Business. 5 Ways to Treat Them As Such.
Hi Carol Lynn,
Aw – thanks so much!
And I love that frame of reference – “not while you’re stuck at a traffic light” – there is so much truth to that.
I too, have spent hours on this very exercise and it absolutely pays off –
Just have to give yourself the time to actually go through it
Thanks for sharing!
~Christine