Is Your List Building Self-Sabotaged?
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Are you sabotaging your list building efforts without even knowing it?
Or, a better way to ask the question is; in your effort to build your list AND pad your profits, are you self sabotaging your efforts?
Let me explain what I am referring to and also in the same vein, let off a little steam about what I see going on in the IM business.
I am going to guess that you, and probably 99.9% of the people who have ventured into the Internet Marketing realm within the past five years (including myself), have heard over and over again until you are ready to barf is: you need to build a list, you need to build a list…
And that’s true. THE ‘secret’ to creating an income that is going to replace your full time income so that you don’t have to go to work everyday, is building that list.
But…not just ANY list. A RESPONSIVE list. A list of buyers.
You can build a list of 100,000 subscribers and if the overwhelming majority of them don’t even open your emails, how are you going to get your copy read?
Wouldn’t you much rather have a small list of readers who respond to the emails that you send out and purchase from you on a regular basis than a ginormous list of readers who are indifferent?
If you didn’t answer that question in your head with an EMPHATIC yes, then my friend, you might as well just cancel your autoresponder, webhosting and domain registration accounts and go back to your 9-5 ‘workin for the man’ dead end job!
Because you don’t ‘get’ it!
I’ve mentioned in the past that I subscribe to numerous ‘marketers’ lists and I get, on average, a few hundred emails a day. I use these emails as a learning experience.
I typically will skim subject lines and unless one catches my attention, I will bypass it. But if it’s from a marketer that I know provides good content, I WILL open it and read, regardless of the subject line.
Why do I skim subject lines?
I want to see what the others are doing…
what can I learn from them?
What are they doing?
Why are they doing it that way?
Should I be doing the same?
If I see the same subject line from several marketers, it probably means that there is a launch going on for the next new shiny object… I may open one of those and read the copy and click through to the sales page just to check it out… If it catches my interest, I’ll make some notes on it and copy and paste some of the sales copy for future reference.
Do I buy? Maybe… if it will help my business out…
but in most cases, No.
More often than not, here’s what I, and probably you also, see for subject lines…
“Confirmation Required – please save this email”
“Your Confirmed Download Link”
“Re: Your Download”
“URGENT: open immediately (critical)”
“Thanks (YOURNAME), Here is Your Download Link ($XX Value)”
the same subject lines over and over and over again…
Now, I don’t know about you, but unless I have just signed up for someone’s gift or another resource from someone, I know for a fact that these subject lines are attempting to get you to open the email…
and if you want to be really straight forward about it
under false pretenses
I WILL say that almost all of the subject lines above are from email/adswaps. Meaning that two marketers get together and decide that they are going to mail out for each other so that they can ‘share’ and ‘build’ their lists respectively.
In theory that is a pretty decent way to build your list fast. Here’s how it works
Let’s say you have a list of 1,500 subscribers and you are working with a person who has a list of 2,500 subscribers.
Both of you send an email to your respective lists, and depending on the responsiveness, you can theoritically increase your list by a bunch.
Let’s look at that.
You both exchange subject line and copy to send out. You know that your’s is optimized because you have tested it and it converts…
you have tested it, haven’t you?
You get subject line and copy from your fellow marketer and you can only trust that he has done the same… at this point you should, as a practice, go through their sign up process. How are they doing it? Do they have a One Time Offer in place or are they just using default autoresponder pages… maybe they have something set up different than you do and you can implement into your process at some point… the point is, you want to see how they handle the sign up process. Plus, if it’s a decent ebook, you might learn something.
Anyway…
Just taking some basic numbers… you have a list of 1,500 and typically when you send an email out 20% open it. That’s 300 readers who open your email and read it.
Now, let’s presume that out of those 300 people, half of them are interested in the content of the email and click on the link, that’s 150 clicks… and if the other person’s squeeze page is set up correctly and converts at 80 percent, that’s 120 new subscribers for the other guy! Not bad.
So let’s flip it around… he sends and email to his list for your offer. He’s sending to 2,500…20% is 500…half is 250…you already know that your squeeze page converts because you have done everything in Squeeze Pages On Crack! and your page is optimized… guess what? You’ve just got 200 new subscribers! Again, not bad.
These numbers are purely theoretical and are not typical. Your results may vary significantly.
But I think you see the potential with adswaps. You can build your list very quickly if you are exchanging with people who have responsive lists and they are interested in what you have to offer.
BUT, there IS a downside and you may just be self – sabotaging your own efforts:
Most people are NOT copywriters and haven’t got a clue on how to write a subject line much less the content that makes up an email that readers are going to click through. So they are resorting to ‘deceptive’ tactics to get you to open the email and read the copy.
So, you’re going to end up sending out emails to your readers with the subject lines that I have listed above… and your readers are going to become very wary of those subject lines and they are going to stop opening your emails.
What happens when they stop opening your emails?
Your messages aren’t getting read… and what happens when your messages aren’t getting read?
Your click through rates plummet.
And when that happens… guess what happens when you send out a legitimate email with an offer for an affiliate product? Or, GASP! a plr product that you have flipped and have for sale…
You get very few opens…
Sales are non existent or very few…
And if sales are ‘slow’… that means you aren’t making any money… and if you aren’t making any money…
Well, we don’t want to go there, do we?
How do you combat this dilemma?
Come back tomorrow and find out…
See you then
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Tagged with: email swaps • List Building • squeeze pages on crack
Filed under: List Building • Rants
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Hey Ron, great post as always. I can relate to the subject line issue, however when I look at my open rates the subject lines that contain “free” or “no optin” out perform the others by a huge amount.
I too want to build a huge responsive list. The truth is that even though you can build a big list quickly it takes time to gain their trust and increase the open rates. There has to be some good content that your readers want as well as promos and freebies. I used to worry about some of the days that the open rate was low but not as much anymore. The ones that do open it are the ones that are interested in my content and that’s what matters.
I am looking forward to your next post though. It should be interesting
.-= Luca Di Nicola´s last blog ..Three Tricks to Writing Email Messages That Convert =-.
Luca,
Thanks for the comment. I hear you about open rates. Actually the report that I now have available ‘IncomeDNA’ partially addresses that. It’s a very good read.
You make some good observations Ron.
There are a shower of copycat headlines every day that promise “Your Free Download” – because those headlines seem to work – or at least work in ways that those marketers want.
I’ve had great open rates, and poor ones, and like Luca, I’m interested to see what tactics you have in mind.
Anthony,
Actually, I don’t believe that they are ‘copycat’ headlines. From what I see, most people are using some sort of plr ebooks to try and build their lists. Where they are doing it wrong is NOT making any changes to the product or the squeeze page and not taking any time to write copy. They also receive the same type of information from their swap partners. So what happens is that they are blasting out emails with ‘free’ in the subject line and sooner or later their open rates plummet and the response rates follow. It’s a vicious circle. Stay tuned for the next post;)
You make some great points! Good information! Helpful and something to think about!
What are you doing for traffic?
Along with what you say, for a targeted list of interested subscribers, we need targeted traffic coming to our website.
Keep up the great work!
Philip,
Thanks for the comment.
When you ask about traffic, are you referring to this site or any of my other sites? I use a variety of different methods depending on what site I am targeting including PPC, articles, swaps (I make sure I don’t have ‘free’ in the subject line;)), forum posts, etc.
Hi Ron
I came to your blog expecting to read an entry, but was surprised to read an outstanding blog post. Wow, it has lots of insight. Keep up the good work. I have to come here more often now.
.-= Fran Aslam´s last blog ..Blog Writing Services Do Provide Great Income As A Professional Blogger =-.
Thank you Fran.
My intention is to provide thought provoking posts.
Glad you enjoyed.
Ron
I have just seen similar posts at Stephanie Muluc and Michael Savioie blogs – must be a buzz subject!
Jonathan
PS. Your RSS feed might be broken. (Tried to subscribe)
Jonathan,
Thanks for the comment. I too saw Stephanie’s post. Didn’t see Michael’s though. Will have to venture over there.
Hey Ron,
Really great post.
You made some really excellent points about building a list that does more than just exist. It’s one thing to have a list and a whole different thing to have a list that’s responsive. I’m just learning all of this stuff but your post really makes a lot of sense
.-= Darren L Carter´s last blog ..Experiments in Lifestyle Design: Internet Business from Rural Japan =-.
Darren,
Thanks for the comment… stay tuned for more info on what the things are that you can do to build a responsive list.
Hey Ron great post, the responsive list is ALL important, and getting the e-mails opened is as well. I will be paying more attention to the ones I open in the future, I also do not open the e-mails of a product launch if I see the same lines repeated, this is a lazy way of marketing it one takes a minute to produce your own subject title and e-mail copy.
Good stuff Ron as ever.
Rob
.-= Rob Corrigan´s last blog ..Why Start Your Own Business? =-.
Rob,
You are correct. ‘Most’ of the email lists I am subscribed to are from people who don’t understand that being different and rewriting the subject line and the content is to their advantage when promoting a product that is just being launched.
Hi Ron, I haven’t participated in these launches yet so I now know what to avoid when I start! Thanks for sharing.
Enjoy the journey.
Mandy
Mandy Allen´s last [type] ..If you don’t have a go you’ll never know…
Mandy,
I would suggest ‘holding’ back on any purchases with new product launches. Wait for a few hours and see if you receive any other emails about the same product. If you really ‘need’ the product get it through someone you trust or someone who is being the most creative.
Great post, Ron! Also, never let e-zine swaps be your sole source of list-building, or you’re always getting to people 5th, 10th or 100th. Keep trying to find ways to get to those just starting into the biz who aren’t already on a zillion lists.
Doug Champigny´s last [type] ..Article Marketing Tips For Internet Marketing Website Promotion
Good point Doug.
Thanks!