What on earth do you send to your list?

[WealthWithin]

I've started building a list for the dating market.


Because of the whole 'build a relationship' theory, I've set up an auto-responder with 5 days of good articles, followed by a review/promotion for an affiliate product.


That's about a week in auto-responders. What should I send after that?

Should I send more articles and products for the same market. (i.e dating)?

[paulie888]

Of course! I wouldn't overload them with promotional emails, I'd keep the ratio of promotional emails to helpful articles/tips/advice to about 1:5 (20%), so that you don't get too much subscriber attrition/burn-out. You could also try sending out stuff that is in a related market such as dieting/weight loss, which is definitely an issue and concern in the dating market.

[Wide]

Good question indeed, have been thinking about this myself.
Should start building that list I guess

[Shaun Lee]

Here's an opinion from the other end of the game, the subscriber (me).

Provide articles of value, NOT free products of this or FREE whatever. I can accept links inside the articles, it's definitely fine and OK. If the list-owner doesn't have articles, then stop sending entirely. It's OK with me too.

But when the list-owner starts sending free product offers, their emails will not be opened. Period. I know those are ad-swaps and/or products of bad to mediocre standard.

So this is the conclusion: Send value, or send nothing.

[thehypnoman]

Gold nuggets (top tips)

Cool PLR, not ropy stuff.

News, helpful videos..... the list goes on..

[Sour]

Originally Posted by SRLee

Here's an opinion from the other end of the game, the subscriber (me).

Provide articles of value, NOT free products of this or FREE whatever. I can accept links inside the articles, it's definitely fine and OK. If the list-owner doesn't have articles, then stop sending entirely. It's OK with me too.

But when the list-owner starts sending free product offers, their emails will not be opened. Period. I know those are ad-swaps and/or products of bad to mediocre standard.

So this is the conclusion: Send value, or send nothing.

Could you elaborate on this more a bit more? So, I shouldn't send any free PLR ebooks or anything?

[MJ Sterling]

Treat them like friends with whom you share a common interest.

So if you learn about a new development in your niche, or a news report, anything of interest, send it to them.

It's about building a relationship with them.

You turn strangers into friends, and friends into customers.

[Shaun Lee]

Originally Posted by Sour

Could you elaborate on this more a bit more? So, I shouldn't send any free PLR ebooks or anything?

Sure.

What I meant was don't send any "ad-swap-to-get-more-subscribers-for-the-other-party" kind of stuff. I know they're ad-swaps, and their emails are hardly opened after that.

If you have to send free offer, send something BIG.

Maybe Product ABC is the new buzz and everyone is promoting it. And you send "Get Product ABC for Free!" and really give it to your list for free (with the product owner's permission).

That's something BIG and your email will probably be opened at all times.

Disclaimer: This is purely what I think and other people might think differently.

[garyfromdurham]

I have a very specific niche market and I send them anything that I find intereting relating to my link.

This can either be done by writing an article about it in the email, or creating a blog post about it and then emailing them to let them know that the article is on the blog.

I used to make the mistake that if I knew something about my niche then they would too. I then realised that they might not have the time or same dedication as me to hunt good information down, or do thorough research, and now I tell them about anything I find - resources, updates, new products, tools, videos etc.

It is amazing how many thanks I get for sharing what I thought was the most basic and glaringly obvious things....but they just didn't know about it. They generally get the most favourable comments on my blog.

At the end of the day, I am a trusted friend and colleague to them and they know that whatever I find or tell them about will be useful to them.

Even though this is my business and how I earn a living, I NEVER view my list members as a money machine.

Gary

[soconnor]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

I've started building a list for the dating market.


Because of the whole 'build a relationship' theory, I've set up an auto-responder with 5 days of good articles, followed by a review/promotion for an affiliate product.


That's about a week in auto-responders. What should I send after that?

Should I send more articles and products for the same market. (i.e dating)?

Hi, good question.

If you Google 'Dating' you will come up with about 173,000,000 websites/pages with that subject. If you go through some of those pages - not all of them as you will be a very old and lonely man when you finish - you will found huge amounts of information, articles, advice on the subject.

All you need to do is to see what is being offered and copy and paste it it into Word or Notepad. Then completely rehash it until you have a short article that you know will be of interest to your clients. Obviously, you will not want to plagiarize the contents, so make sure they are your own words.

Any new content is already 'out there' so just go and look.

Best Wishes
Sidney

[basefunding]

I also use surveys to get info from the list ads to what they want. It keeps them engaged and I get some good feedback.

[Odhinn]

I think that a free report or something like that is OK once in a great while, but most of the time, when I open an email, I'd rather read the email, and even if I download your free report, I don't usually read it.

I think the #1 turn off for me is when someone sends me too many emails. If I hear from you more than I hear from my girlfriend, say, then you're sending me way too much junk. Unfortunately, many marketers out there seem to think that quantity is king, and I get 4 emails per week from them. Excessive.

[WealthWithin]

Good suggestions here.

How often would you mail your list?

do you do only affiliate products or do you create your own products?

[DogScout]

There are two ways to do this effectively. The easy way is to use the list but don't have emails auto sent unless you go on extended vacation or won't have time to write emails for a while. mostly you write each email as you send it. the contents are usually personal stuff, something that your kid did in school, how your anniversary went, etc. you weave information about your niche into the stories so the reader both gets to know you personally and gets a look at how information from you is applicable to their own lives.
Another way is to load your AR with past stories of your life, again weaved with how information you share with them has made your life better and can make their life better. You can load a couple of years worth of emails in a main AR. Occasionally you send an email about a product you sell or have bought and used and how great it is. When a person buys, they go on a different list. the 2nd list continues to have personal stories, but the offers come closer together and the offers when made are higher in price. If a person on your list buys a lot, they start getting a lot of offers, but the personal stories never end.

The best way to get a clear picture of what works for multimillionaires, is to go to perrymarshall.com and sign up for one of his two free email courses on awords. That will put you on his main list (which is preloaded with 175 emails). Look how he weaves past personal experience with information and occasional offers. He does sell an auto-responder course that explains the 'maze'. that is the moving of people from one list to another depending on thier buying habits.
Then go to glennlivingston.com and sign up for his list. His emails are always current stories, most dealing with personal issues and weaving what he does into them. His offers always include some current info dealing with either personal info, news, celebrities or the like.

both are great examples of both kinds of uses of ARs and both do it better than anyone else whose list I have ever been on. The lesson is to be willing to share enough personal info to let the clients get to KNOW you without revealing enough to attract stalkers. Lol. People like doing business with people. use the AR to show you are a person.

[DogScout]

Both people create their own products, but also JV products. If you are just sending a follow-up to a sale, the frequency is 1,2,3,5,8,13,21 days (notice, the day sent is the total of the two previous days!) The equation can go on for a year or so with just 12 or so email.
These emails would be sent in addition to whatever emails are sent to the whole list, as often as one a day for a highly responsive list member to to one a week to someone that has never bought anything.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

I've started building a list for the dating market.


Because of the whole 'build a relationship' theory, I've set up an auto-responder with 5 days of good articles, followed by a review/promotion for an affiliate product.


That's about a week in auto-responders. What should I send after that?

Should I send more articles and products for the same market. (i.e dating)?

This is one niche you should never run out of things to write about. You have the obvious - more dating tips, weight loss, etc.

You also have a wealth of side topics - etiquette, fashion, hygiene, places to go, date ideas, music, cooking, movies...

It's been 30 years since I've been in the dating pool, and I can come up with at least a year's worth of ideas... Just stretch your mind.

Here's a tip for getting unstuck...

If your target audience is men, sit down with a few issues of Cosmo and other womens' magazines. They all have relationship and dting columns you can use for inspiration. If your target audience is women, flip it and look at male-oriented magazines like Maxim, etc.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

I've set up an auto-responder with 5 days of good articles, followed by a review/promotion for an affiliate product.

That's about a week in auto-responders.

That's only one week? You're sending them something every day?

Originally Posted by MJ Sterling

Treat them like friends with whom you share a common interest.

Exactly.

I send them the same sort of emails I send to friends, not worrying too much about keeping the content entirely "on-subject" but wanting to keep them informed and entertained. And contrary to most people's "advice" on this subject, I use plenty of long words and make facetious comments too.

[druwainwright]

I simply use my list to market products and promotions which are relevant to the niche that the people signed up for! Simple :-)

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by druwainwright

I simply use my list to market products and promotions which are relevant to the niche that the people signed up for! Simple :-)

Hmm, simple indeed; but don't you worry that you're losing potential sales by not forming relationships with them through what you send?

[Rezbi]

Sign up for Matt Furey's emails and do what he does.

[NY1]

If you want people to read your e-mails in the dating niche, then you have to give them something different. Something unique.

Bland, boring, vanilla dating advice is a dime a dozen on the internet. It's like a fungus that just won't stop growing.

And most of it sucks.

Prove that you do indeed have real expertise on the subject of dating, stuff that they won't get from any other blog, article, website, etc. and they will open your e-mails and trust you and buy from you.

Otherwise, they could just as easily pick up a magazine on the news stand and get the same information or better.

Also, most of the advice from the internet marketer to internet marketer crowd does not apply here in terms of e-mail marketing.

Your core demographic is not going to know anything about an Adswap, they don't check their e-mail everyday and Tuesday is one of the WORST days to send them an e-mail.

Your core demographic spends more time on Youtube, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter than they do anything else with the exception of maybe a Match.com or an E-harmony.

They probably make between $25K -$50K per year. They are more likely to live in an apartment than a house.

You see where I'm going here?

Research your market, not keyword research, and you will learn how to market to them by e-mail or any other means.

[lovemyth]

One thing I learned from Eben Pegan is "give your best stuff for free!" give people good quality information on a consistant basis to set yourself up as the alpha male. The leader who knows what he's talking about. People will follow those that provide value.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by lovemyth

give people good quality information on a consistant basis to set yourself up as the alpha male.

Does that mean I have to start using men's names, to sell my stuff?

[Rod Cortez]

Originally Posted by WealthWithin

I've started building a list for the dating market.


Because of the whole 'build a relationship' theory, I've set up an auto-responder with 5 days of good articles, followed by a review/promotion for an affiliate product.


That's about a week in auto-responders. What should I send after that?

Should I send more articles and products for the same market. (i.e dating)?

I've been in this niche for over 5 years now and have done a lot of testing on what works and what doesn't work.

What you should do is opt into the newsletters of all the top players in this market to get ideas (not copy, but get ideas). You'll see that many of them send their readers useful content that they can use, sometimes right away. The really smart marketers send out at least one year's worth of autoresponder content once or twice a week, and it works like gang busters.

Sometimes they share field reports. Sometimes they share success stories. Some of them have webinars and/or telephone seminars that last anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. Ask your readers what they want to know and what they need help with every now and then and you will have enough material to last you a few months!

This really builds up the relationship and makes them more prone to buy. Most of them also answer questions from their readers and share the answers. Some of them make videos and share them with their readers (like the Pickup 101 guys as an example). You should have at least 3 months worth of material going out at least once a week in this niche (1-3 years worth is much, much better).

Rod

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Does that mean I have to start using men's names, to sell my stuff?

As long as you use the right name...

Seriously, though, you have an even bigger advantage. You are the alpha male's Most Wanted Response...

[Marketstriker]

Originally Posted by Rod Cortez

I've been in this niche for over 5 years now and have done a lot of testing on what works and what doesn't work.

Rod

It's hard to add anything hear. But I'll try.
I visited a few sites as user and subscribed to a newsletter. I liked videos the most. Newsletter became boring, when authors only announced future trainings. Some of them make offline training business in this niche except for online. Some of them published books. These site owners achieved success and I'm sure you will.

[DogScout]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

Does that mean I have to start using men's names, to sell my stuff?

For the lat 21 years, the alpha dog in my pack of 4+ has been a female. She let several of the males 'think' they were in charge and was always very protective of them, but if they stepped out of line, she could back them down with a look. Her name was Scout (after the little girl in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and partially for 'scout-dogs' or dogs of war. We took 3,000 dogs to Vietnam where they saved over 10,000 GI lives and when we pulled out we left them to fend for themselves. Only 200 were smuggled back to the states. Since, we have changed the policy and we bring them home now. They continue to save hundreds of lives every month in Afghanistan by going down caves 1st.)

Scout died after 19 years of kidney cancer. If we had fed her what we feed our dogs now, she would probably lived to 25+ years old. I miss her everyday.



Anyway, I'd let you be my alpha female anytime

[DogScout]

BTW - That is the kind of story you send to your list. If you are in the dating list, you add a short blurb about how she snubbed all advances by hounds and what the hounds could have done to break the ice; etc.

Personalize everything