The hunt for good list building tips just became clearer. For any business owner, online or offline, having list of subscribers often means the difference between having someone to send your latest promotions out to and having to forage for listeners.
If you’ve heard the saying, the money is in the list, then you probably think that it sounds like a pretty good business model. And it is.
But, let’s go a step further and add that “the money is in the relationship you have with your list.” A list is only as good as what you mold it to be.
As the business owner, you are in control of the relationship you develop with your list. Good quality messages will get your correspondence opened; lousy sales offers will send you into the junk pile.
Here are some of the best tips for list building:
- You need a freebie. A freebie is an item that you will give away to people who fill in their name and email address to get on your list. Freebies are an excellent way of offering people something of value to sign up with you.
- Your freebie needs to be targeted. A free report on vegetable gardening is not targeted to the Internet Marketing crowd. In the same sense that a blogger won’t necessarily find value in a report on making money with Amazon – a few might, but you want to target your audience better than that.
- The free offer sets the tone for the whole relationship. There are times when you can send an off-the-wall offer to your list, but that is only after you’ve established a relationship with them. Your initial list building efforts should focus entirely on applicable value-added products and services that compliment your free offer.
- Here is one of the best list building tips around: Find a sweet spot with your list. Find a system that works for them responding to your offers. Maybe it’s 3 value emails and then a product to buy, maybe it’s four and then something to buy. Finding the sweet post will be a great accomplishment, as this will guide you as to how to structure your offers in the future.
- What to send? Sending valuable information always is a good thing – a tip from a course everyday or other valuable tips you find online. Something that makes them say “Wow that was helpful” when they read it.
- Ask them. This list building tip always seems to get forgotten. The easiest way to find out what people want is to ask them. Ask your list or ask on your blog or website. Find out what concerns people are having.
- Don’t wait to start sending emails. Mail to your list as soon as you get one person on there. Just like everything else in life, the more you do it, the better you get. So mail as soon as you see that first subscriber pop up in your autoresponder.
While list building tips are essential for getting started with list building, just taking action on the right steps is even more essential.
Building a list can be a stiff learning curve – get step by step guidance complete with list building tips to start seeing your subscriber count increase everyday.
Thank you Christine, finally someone who gets it!
Far to many marketers build lists without even thinking about how they will use the list. The ‘sweet spot’ made me smile when I saw it, because so few marketers really understand it – and I’m so happy to see your promote it.
One thing I would add is that freebies are no longer as valuable as we thing, especially within the online marketing field.
I noticed last week that 50% of my signups unsubscribed within a minute of receiving their free gift. There are obviously freebie lists out there that many people are leeching.
There are also tons of instant ‘fake’ email servies where it is easy to sign up to a list with a fake email (which is created the instant you visit the page without entering any details and all emails are shown on that one page) – and can have your download in seconds without actually using a real email address.
The solution therefore (for myself at least) is to create a series of freebies or to split the freebie over a number of days.
I have tried this in a few niches and found that people are more likely to use a real address as they want all the info…
That would be my prediction. Very Soon ehe freebies will change to a series of freebies, or a 7 part series etc, as it is perhaps the only way to combat the rise in instant ‘fake’ email services.
Dee Kumar recently posted..10 things I learned about getting your story to journalists
Hey Dee.
You know you touched on something that is very interesting…
I,too, have been inundated with unsubscribes in one particular list.
I thought maybe it was just the bot-type subscribes, but changing the freebie to a course over a few days is a great idea anyway.
And yes, sweet spot is one of my favorite terms in marketing – college Marketing 101, I believe it was
Good to “see” you!
~Christine