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?

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KNOW Your Target Demographics

Assumption is the mother of all stuff ups!

A couple of days back, I was working with one of my consulting clients. We have been working together for a couple of months now, and his business has really been picking up.

His main site is an information product in the “adult” niche. NO, it’s NOT porn!

He has a squeeze page, as well as a main sales page. The conversion rate on both is OK, but, nothing to really write home about.

He does some AdWords, as well as all the usual suspects… Forums, blog comments, articles, etc, etc, etc.

Both of us thought, and ASSUMED the product’s main target audience is young, single males in their early twenties, to their early thirties.

The copy was written for this specific audience.

We started doing a bit more research as to who EXACTLY was looking for the information he is selling.

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A couple of years back, I did something on my birthday, which has now become somewhat of a tradition.

Basically from the day of my birthday, which is today, 10 November, for a week, I give a discount on all my top selling products, equal to the age I turned that year.

Well, this year, TODAY, I turned 37.

So, you can now, until 16 November, get 37% discount on the products listed below!

Boy, don’t you hope I reach a 100?!

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I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on the current so called recession or credit crunch.

It’s virtually impossible to turn on any news from any source, without being bombarded with news on how bad the world economy is doing, how everyone is suffering, how another bank has been taken over or went bankrupt.

It’s freaking depressing!

Let me ask you a couple of questions….

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