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Combating List
Building Frenzy: Take The Time To Promote
by Dan J. Fry, c. 2003-2004, All
rights reserved.
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-bothworlds sorts where the very
thing that you are promoting is onein 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.
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About the Author:
Dan J.
Fry is an independent researcher and owner of
e-Kinetic.com, a site devoted
to providing resources for small budget home businesses. He has a PhD in
Physics, two daughters and two cats. Subscribe to his free E-Zine on home
business resources at mailto:e-kinetic@GetResponse.com or
by visiting his site at http://www.e-kinetic.com. He can be reached
at
mailto:comp@e-kinetic.com.
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