Combating List Building Frenzy: Take The Time To Promote
It is an accepted fact among the experts now that online
marketing succeeds only with a quality, highly targeted
permission email list in place. As a result, the multi-level
marketers have pounced on this and everywhere you look another
"matrix" lead generating system springs up.
There is no doubt that these are powerful techniques offering
the advantage of building your subscriber base while basking in
profits simply from growing your list. This is a best-of-both
worlds sorts where the very thing that you are promoting is one
in the same with what you are building -> your list.
For "newbie" marketers, it is easy to get caught up in the
frenzy since one is desperately hungry to build a subscriber
base and actually see the first profits rolling in. However,
with working on an initially limited advertising budget, the
monthly charges to stay in the "matrix" can take a substantial
bite out of other advertising resources.
What is one to do? Can you build a list with highly targeted
subscribers, subscribers who are craving for your information,
at relatively low cost? The answer: yes, but it takes time.
For those just starting out this is a double-edged sword. You
want profits soon, but also want profits to continue to come in.
The problem here is that the two are contradictory. They
straddle two opposite sides of the fence so to speak.
*Consider the following scenario:
Suppose you have a large subscriber base that trusts your
opinions and judgments. On Friday you send to your list a
promotion for which you either own the product or are an
affiliate. Now suppose that your list is 3000 subscribers in
size, your conversion rate is 5% (pretty good) and your profit
per sale is $99. That amounts to $14,850 in sales from one
campaign! Not bad, not bad. I could easily live with this kind
of return.
Now lets take another scenario. You are just starting out,
understand that building a list is of utmost importance, but
really want to start making profits quickly. You purchase 600
leads advertised as "quality double opt-in MLM". You then
quickly blast away your promotion. Approximately 0.5% (note that
this is an order of magnitude less than the first example!)
actually make the purchase - 3 out of 600, which is not a very
good conversion. But hey, you paid $100 for the leads, made $297
in sales, for a $197 ROI! Just starting out, you become giddy
and sort of euphoric at the profits you have just made.
All excited, you blast away another promotion the following
week. But this time you only receive a single sale. Uh oh!
What's going on? So in a panic you only wait 3 or 4 days and try
to re- promote. But, over the next few days, not only do you see
no sales, over half of your subscribers cancel their
subscription.
*Question: What happened?
Your subscribers don't know you. In all likely hood the sales
you made were nothing more than pure luck. Within your list you
will undoubtedly have a few people who are really serious,
perhaps a bit frivolous with their money, and will buy
immediately. But you have absolutely no relationship with your
subscribers. They simply looked at your second promotion and
said "I don't know who this is, but they keep sending me
emails", and cancelled.
What has happened here is the marketing analogue of the
biochemical "quick fix" you get when eating a candy bar to curve
your hunger. It works great initially, but you crash hard
shortly after.
*Solution?* Take your time building your list!
One thing that I cannot stress enough is the time between sign
up and first contact. When you buy lists, although sellers
usually advertise only a few days old, you get addresses of
people who don't even remember what they initially signed up
for. I don't know about you but if I receive emails from people
that I don't remember, it gets canned immediately. Being that
over 150 million people are on the internet today, and are
constantly hit with advertisement after advertisement, can you
really be surprised that after a few days they really can't
remember what they signed up for. The information age has
catapulted us from one extreme to the next: information no load
to information overload. So, you absolutely must make contact
immediately after sign up.
There is another very important reason for the quick follow up
after sign up - building credentials. People will be much more
likely to stick with you if they think "hey, I signed up and
immediately received a response. This person cares." And you
should care. If your serious about developing an online business
you should care about your contacts and you should supply them
with valuable information. To succeed first take the time to
promote and build a quality list. Profits will come in due time.