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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.
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