Why You Should Be Building A List….
Hi there,
In this Blog post I am going to talk a little about the importance of building a list in your online business.
Sure, there are many ways these days to build and connect with your audience and there are a dozen courses being released every week for each and every platform claiming to teach you how to do so while making 1000’s of dollars while you are at it. Whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat etc.
Am I saying none of these work?….Of course not…but ask yourself this….
How are the people promoting these courses promoting them to you?
Yes, I thought so…more than likely by email, right?
You see….most of the people promoting these courses are not using these methods themselves. The ones that are, are using these platforms to funnel traffic to a squeeze page to capture their details on an email list. You see what is happening here?
So…don’t do as these people say but do as they do if you want to see real success.
One other point about basing a business on a single or even a few social platforms is that you are completely at their mercy. If they choose they can shut you down in an instant and you will have no comeback. Your business could die overnight. Also, trends change and the social platform which was flavor of the month last month may not be so in several months time. Anyone remember MySpace ??So as you can see now, building a list (or multiple lists) is key to your long term success with your online business. However, simply building a list is not enough in itself. You see…many people think it is enough to just get a lot of people on their list and bombard them with promotions from day one. I am sure you have ended up on more than just a few of these kinds of email lists in your time.
And what did you do?…
You unsubscribed, didn’t you?
Or at very best you just stopped opening the emails from that person and simply ignored them. If you are using Gmail then these emails probably ended up in the Spam folder anyway.
If you have been following online marketing for any length of time you have probably also heard people say that email marketing doesn’t work anymore.
Email Marketing is dead they will tell you.
People don’t open their emails anymore and the ones that do rarely click through on any of the links in the email. Who do you think for the most part are the people spreading these stories online??
Yep…you probably guessed right, the same people who do exactly what I have just described.
The problem with these people is that they fail to realize that the numbers they see in their Autoresponder accounts are actually real people. People with feelings, hopes, dreams, frustrations etc. They are not just robots with credit cards waiting for the latest promotion to hit their inbox so that they can whip out their credit cards and buy whatever trash is being promoted to them.
Or course this approach can work to a degree in certain markets where there are a large number of interested people and a high turnover rate….such as the Internet Marketing niche. This method is called Churn and Burn for obvious reasons.
These marketers build large lists and then hammer them with promotions until the buy or die (unsubscribe).
Sure, they will make a few sales but then their list becomes unresponsive. The problem with this approach is that you need a reasonably big list to generate a decent income and in order to maintain that list size you need to be constantly adding subscribers to it.
Don’t get me wrong…you should be constantly adding subscribers to your list anyway, but using the method I just described, you need to be doing it at a must faster rate.
So…..let me ask you this….would you like to build a business using that method or would you like to build a business based on building a relationship with your subscribers and adding value to their lives?
Learning about what their dreams and frustrations are and helping them on their journey and providing them with the solutions which they are actually looking for.
The fact is that following this approach will allow you to build a list of like minded people and even raving fans who will be much more likely to open your emails when you send them, and even buy your product recommendations.
Sure, not everyone is going to like your style and you can except people to unsubscribe on a daily basis. This is normal and you should never take it personally. Not everyone is going to like everyone, that’s life. Also, you should not try and be everything to everyone either. That will make your message wishy washy and you will actually connect with fewer people by trying to do that.
However, taking this approach will lead you to having a solid fan/customer base which you can depend on. Subscribers like this are more likely to end up on your list for years to come, as opposed to months or even just weeks.
Did you know?…..It is possible to have a 6 figure a year business with just 1000 loyal fans on your list.
It is important also to point out that if you are promoting products and services to your loyal list to always do due diligence on the product you are promoting first. Preferably buy the product yourself and check it out. It takes a while to build that know like and trust relationship with your subscribers. However, promoting one single crap product can destroy that trust in an instant.
In conclusion I would strongly recommend that anyone planning on starting an online business should be building a list from day one. I would also highly recommend that you give serious consideration to which method you use to build and maintain your list of subscribers. I think it is obvious which approach I think is best.
I will be writing many more posts on the topics of list building and email marketing as these are large niches within the Online Marketing niche.
So on that note I will sign off for now.
Peace, Love and Success,
Donal.