It is often said that the money is in the list. And the bigger the list, the more money you will earn.
But that’s only partially true, and here’s why.
In fact, it is the quality of the list that decides how much money you make. Some of my biggest and best conversion rates and thousands of dollar sales have been from a small, but high-quality list. In fact, so great are the customers on that list that some of them have sent me gifts, even after paying me thousands of dollars for my products. So, given the choice, I will gladly take a small list of good quality each time!
So how do you prepare to get a good quality listing from scratch?
Once you have generated a stream of quality traffic to your website, you need to retain as much as possible by capturing the names of quality visitors. There are several ways to do this.
The most popular are popups, which visitors hate and webmasters love, simply because they tend to work.
Increasingly popular is the squeeze page, where the visitor’s name and email address are literally extracted before allowing them to view the website. The effectiveness of these two methods depends on how intriguing your text and bullet points are in convincing visitors to fill out the name capture form. Depending on how your visitor got to your site (by clicking on AdWords, reading an article, search engine result, or recommendation), you could achieve conversion rates anywhere from 20% to perhaps double that figure.
But how would you like to achieve more conversions on a consistent basis, and also high-quality conversions?
All you need to do is provide some content for the visitor to read prior to you ask for your name and address. That way, you don’t violate the first rule of marketing (don’t upset your prospect). In addition, you also prove your worth by letting them see the type of information you are going to provide. This is much better than a headline, no matter how exciting, and a list of bullet points, no matter how compelling. After all, that’s self-praise, which will always have a lower credibility rating than letting them see for themselves how good you are
Here is another benefit with this method. If the visitor subscribes to your list, after having tried the products a bit, it means that they are more likely to match what he has to offer. The closer the match, the more likely it is to convert a lead into a customer. You don’t want people on your list who will probably never become customers. Quality beats quantity every time.
But the world’s highest quality list is only as good as its last shipment. Don’t imagine for a moment that all the prospects on your list are so enamored with you and your website that they’re sitting at their computers carefully deleting all emails that don’t have your name on them. You know from your own experience how much you get hit with email offers every quarter. Therefore, your task is to keep your name at the forefront of your potential customer’s mind.
You want to strive to position yourself as the supplier of choice. Just as you might automatically think of Coke or Bud when you’re thirsty, you want them to immediately think of you when they have a problem in your area of expertise.
For this reason, you should email your list at least once a week, and much more often than that initially. If they signed up for a course for the first time, you may initially be emailing them every day. That’s a good start. Thereafter, once a week should be the goal, which is why a regular newsletter is so valuable. Always remember that we humans need to repeat something 21 times to form a neural pathway in our brains that creates a habit.
Once you’ve built a quality list with these methods, don’t destroy your reputation by selling something in every email or offering junk. Offer lots of free stuff and only offer something for sale every four emails. Even then, only offer your own products or affiliate products that you have personal experience using or from someone you hold in high regard.
You can also make your contacts much more personal by occasionally mailing your list. Send them a free DVD or CD, because that’s a safe way to open the package, even if they don’t recognize your return address.
Once you have your list, keep it with your life, because it is the list, a quality list nurtured properly, that will provide you with your wonderful lifestyle. Isn’t that something worth working hard for?
Copyright 2006 Paul Hooper-Kelly and www.InternetMarketingMagician.com