No matter what sort of business you’re running, your business will benefit greatly from building and monetizing an email list.
Or perhaps you’re not yet running a business, and you’re still in the early phases of figuring out the best ways to make money online. Here again, building a mailing list is your path to profits.
The question is, how do you build and monetize a list? That’s what you’re about to find out inside this guide.
It can be confusing to know what to promote as an email marketer. Will you earn more if you mail out product A or product B? You know that product A has a wider appeal… But product B has a higher price point. Even if you make fewer sales, you might end up making more money. There are a lot of considerations to make as a marketer.
That’s not to say that you should spend a ton of time stewing over this decision. Time is money. Yes, you should evaluate the products you mail out– and that’s something we’ll talk about– but you can learn how to make evaluations quickly.
You can learn:
Now and then I coach fellow marketers on how to take their $1000 a month business and quickly level it up to $10,000 a month.
Just between you and me, it’s easier to go from $1,000 to $10,000 than it is to go from $0 to $1000.
That’s because once an income reaches $1000 a month, there are already systems and funnels in place that are making it happen. Then it’s just a question of tweaking those systems to increase the income.
If you don’t already have a list, a funnel and so forth, you can still make money from this ‘trick’ by going to other marketers who are building their email lists and offering to add another $1000 a month to their income.
And if you’re already building your list, then you are going to LOVE this.
A few weeks ago a new coaching client came to me asking for help in scaling his business. The first thing I did was ask to see his autoresponder sequence. These are the automated emails that are sent out to someone on a regular basis when they join his list.
I’m most interested in seeing that first email he sends; the one that always reads something like, “Welcome to the ABC list, here’s the link to your free download!”
That is the standard email and I’m here to tell you that it’s a sin to send the email this way, and here’s why:
This first email that new subscribers receive from you is opened somewhere between 50% to 90% of the time.
Check your own AR stats and see if this isn’t true.
Opened 50% to 90% of the time! No other email comes close to reaching these numbers.
And yet, most marketers do NOT do any selling in that email.
“I don’t want to come across as pushy.”
“I’m worried if I try to sell something they will unsubscribe.”
If you have thoughts like these then it’s time to turn your thinking on its head.
If you’re building a list, 99 times out of 100 it’s because you want to sell that list something.
Maybe you’re a non-profit and you want to sell them on making a donation.
Maybe you have a certain belief system and you want to sell them on believing what you believe.
Or maybe, like most of us, you want to sell them products and services that help them to reach their goals.
Now then, if you are building a list so that you can sell to them, then what’s wrong with… selling to them?
If seeing a sales link in that initial email scares them off, then they were never going to buy anyway.
Otherwise, by placing a link in that email, you are training them to EXPECT to see links in all of your emails.
You are training them to expect offers and click links.
As you can imagine, this is profitable for you and beneficial for your list because you are helping them to get the benefit(s) they seek.
Now then, back to my coaching student…
His “Welcome” email was just what I expected.
“Welcome to the XYZ Studio, here’s the link to your free video.”
And here are the changes we made:
First, in the email we promised to send a second free gift the following day. We do this to train new subscribers to open emails, and in fact every email for the first week promises another free gift the following day. We also added 3 or 4 hot bullet points to make them salivate over those free gifts and anticipate receiving the email the next day and opening it.
This method alone can greatly increase your income in the long run because your list becomes accustomed to opening any email that comes from you.
Continue to give them free gifts now and then to keep that momentum up, and make sure the free gifts are short, sweet and totally awesome.
Okay, before I tell you about the second thing we added to that first email, let’s do a little math:
If you get 100 new subscribers each day, and 3 out of 4 open that first email, that’s 75 opens.
If you get 300 new subscribers each day, that’s 225 opens.
225 opens times 30 days a month is 6750 opens each month.
That’s 6750 people you can be sending to the link of your choice, and here’s how to do it:
P.S. While you’re eagerly waiting for that free gift tomorrow, I’ve got one more thing for you today – a special 20% off discount code ***for NEW subscribers only***.
After you visit our catalog, if you decide to try out any of our best selling products, you can use the check out code “WELCOME20” to instantly save on as many products as you choose.
My personal favorite is the XYZ product because it will reveal exactly how you can get (benefit) in just 7 days.
Don’t wait too long to use your discount because it’s valid only on first time orders and only for the next 24 hours.
Visit our store here <<LINK>>
With these two tweaks (free gift, P.S discount) my student added over $1000 a month to her income almost immediately.
It doesn’t matter what your business model is, you need to focus on building a list.
Building a list helps you develop relationships with the people in your audience. It ensures that you always have access to targeted people in your niche, no matter what.
Many business owners feel content with just waiting for customers to return on their own, using Google to get found, or relying on social media.
The trouble is that customers will forget about you, even if you’re the best and they had a great experience with you. They have so many things going on in their lives. Make sure you’re at the top of their mind at all times by getting them on your list and frequently communicating with them.
It doesn’t matter what your focus is as a marketer, your email list is likely your most valuable asset. Scratch that—it is your most valuable asset. It makes sense, then, to focus on tweaking your email marketing strategy so you can earn even more.
Many marketers, both new and experienced, are intimidated by email marketing. They aren’t sure how to really connect with their audience in the right way. They aren’t sure how to build the relationship or make sales. Some mail too much and others don’t mail enough. It can be really confusing.
One of your top priorities should be to continue to build your list. This should always be a priority and unfortunately many marketers drop the ball on this. That’s one great reason it’s so important to release new products and get new affiliates on board to promote those products. Also, put up squeeze pages and give away freebies and continue to drive traffic to those squeeze pages.