Money in the list?

There is the OLD saying: The money is in the list.

I agree with this wholeheartedly!

BUT, and you KNEW there was a BUT coming…

Most “gurus” tell you to give away free stuff to build your list. This generally works well, and if done correctly, you can grow quite a size-able list in a fairly short amount of time.

I still think there is a caveat to this bit of advice…

Let me explain by way of example….

Yesterday, a fairly big marketer, good friend, and mentor of mine, emailed one of my offers to one of his lists.

The list in question is over 50K in size, and he has built this up over a year or so period by giving away freebies. The list is very fresh, and gets marketed to very regularly.

So, the offer was for a VERY limited set of resell rights at $197 a seat. Not cheap, but, by no means expensive considering some of the BIG launches we have seen over the past couple of months.

The actual email copy was LONG, and had the link in it all over the place. The email itself was brilliantly written by said marketer. I read it top to bottom, and if it wasn’t my own product being sold, I would have bought, just from reading that email!

So, BIG list, well known marketer, GREAT email, great offer, reasonable price. What happened?

(more…)

Back in March, I wrote THIS article, complaining about the quality of my list, and how unresponsive they are to anything.

So, being the pull your finger and fix it type of guy, I went on a mission to build, not only a quality site, but, a QUALITY news letter.

I sent an email to my whole list, apologizing for me bombarding them with offers, and not living up to my promise to send them a real newsletter with quality content. I asked them to sign up to the newsletter on this site, which would automatically unsubscribe them from all the other lists that they are on.

I was actually quite surprised at the number of people who did signup to the newsletter list!

So, now that we have started putting out this newsletter, how has the response been?

Let me 1st give some more details. The newsletter is full of quality content, as well as other bits and pieces, including promotions for affiliate products as well as my own. Content is still around 80% +. You can see for yourself in the newsletter archive on the menu at the top.

The newsletter list gets the newsletter only, unless there is some time constraint on a promotion, and I truly believe it is worth risking those valuable subscribers, to let them know about it.

The other lists, all still get all kinds of promotions, but, they also get the newsletter.

Open rate of the newsletter across ALL the lists is at a staggering 70%!!! Clicks inside the newsletter, also across ALL lists, are at a mind blowing 85%!!!

Now, I must add here that I DO provide a lot of free resources in the newsletter, which people click on, but, the promotions does get a fair share of around 20% of all clicks!

Not bad at all for providing quality content, which I write myself, from the heart, and does not take me more than around 45 minutes total to put out the newsletter.

Are the clicks on the promotions converting? YOU BET THEY ARE!

Now, you go and write some quality content for YOUR list, and let me know the change you experience from it!