What's the use of having an email list if...

Have you tried hiring a copywriter to write your aweber series?

It could be 1 or 2 things, as I can see:

1. Your list is not a valued list, they have no real interest in what you are selling. Like selling hair spray to skin heads.

or

2. Your aweber campaign is lacking on "literary persuasion". And I am not saying it is you...the fact is a copywriter is trained to know exactly what a certain group of people desire most and use it to sell.

Just a few thoughts,
Good luck to you.

Shane, it really depends on a lot of factors. The niche...the type of people signing up...the opt in page, etc.

What are you offering on the opt in page? Do you let them know ahead of time that there will be ads? What about your publishing schedule?

Regular unsubscribes are a good thing, since they're voluntarily helping you prune your list of non-responsive people.

Spam complaints aren't good, though. Are you using double opt-in? Are you reminding them THEY signed up on whatever date from whatever IP address?

What kind of content are you sending them? Is it extremely long or is the message a teaser that leads them to click through to a more full piece of content on your website?

Do you easily segue into your pitch, or is the ad unrelated and blatantly ad-like? Does the offer itself provide value to your reader? Are you sending the same offer at least five to seven messages in a row, or do you send different offers every message? (People need to see an offer up to seven or more times before the majority of buyers will buy...)

Are you sending a ton of adswaps? Are you sending a ton of solo ads/launch madness ads?

Do you send mail every day, once a week, or only sporadically?

Another factor may be that you are sending out ads too quickly, so that they feel like they are being swarmed with ads instead of the good content they had grown to enjoy from you.

To rectify this, I would try one or more of the following:
1. Send ads less frequently.
2. Write quality content around the ads - describe why the ads are relevant to them specifically, the readers who trust you and are interested in that type of thing.
3. Combine your relationship-building content with ads. So maybe the first half of the e-mail is the type of content you sent out at the beginning to build relationships, and the second half is a well-written ad.

Good luck!

I think a fairly general rule is that the more effort you put into your emails, the more people will buy what you promote.

On the other hand you do also need to think about what type of people signed up, what their original motivation was, and keep your offers inline with this.

I have thought about doing the ad swap method myself but Im thinking a lot of the subcribers I will be getting are probably on 10 or more other peoples list. Especially if the person offering the ad buys offers them every week. You are having to compete with a ton of other people

I would suggest trying to get more targeted optins then optins from ad swaps

Ratios are really important for this type of thing. As in 7 quality content messages for every "pitch" message. You can do 5 to 1, but that's the lowest I would go.

You get people to buy from you by focusing on giving
them content and offers that are relevant to them.

If you want to build a relationship with your list, then
why would you want to be doing ad swaps already?

People buy from people they know, like and trust.

Have you been adding material so that your list knows,
likes and trusts you?

Also, find out what your list really wants and then
you'll be in a better position to give it to them.

If they're not buying, they either don't know, like or
trust you enough yet, or your offer is not compelling
for them - or it's a dead market without rabid buyers.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

Relevancy and relationships I would say are important, analyze what you have written to the list about, and look to give them some free quality focused advice and content, and follow up (having opened their minds) with a highly related offer along with more quality content and advice.

It's really important to put as much effort into your autoresponder messages as you do with your website. If you've got a double opt-in list and they aren't unsubscribing, you can assume that they're open to pulling out their wallet for the right offer...but before that, they need to feel that they LIKE you.

I'll give you an example. On my sales page, I promise my customers that we give lifetime updates. When you buy any of my products, when we release new updated versions, they get them free of charge. We don't release these updates often, but when we do, I send a message to my ENTIRE list (buyers and prospects) and tell them "If you are a customer, email me and I'll send you a link to download all the new stuff for free." (Provided that they send in a copy of their receipt as proof.)

The gratitude is massive. I get lots of "thanks, you're the man!" emails...and I always see my sales spike up over the next couple of weeks. I think it's because a lot of my list members who were on the fence before...wondering whether to buy my stuff...now think I'm a good guy who really wants to help them out over the long term (which is true), and isn't just trying to hustle them for a quick sale. So they go ahead and buy.

Yes, think this is an awesome post.

It GREATLY depends on the niche, how effective a list is in my experience.

I have some niches that like you say, don't really respond that well when you try and monetize them, and then I have others where you can make quite a good living with this method and sending out the occasional offer.

I think it comes down to the fact that it is ALWAYS better to have the list.

Keep growing it, and providing good content and have a think of what that list needs.

Even send out a survey or something or ask for feedback - just finding that sweet spot!

Chris

You need TWO things to have a profitable email list.

#1 - The RIGHT kind of subscribers

#2 - The RIGHT kind of offer

If you build a list with freebie seekers and tire-kickers, who
will grab anything you gift them for free, but not care enough
to explore stuff that's much more valuable if they have to pay
for it, you've lost the game before you begin.

And even with the right kind of prospect on your list, unless
you can make them the kind of offer that will have them pulling
out their wallet/credit card and BUYING, you won't reach anywhere
near your highest potential as a list marketer.

The rest of the factors matter, like ensuring deliverability,
relationship building and great, compelling copywriting.

But the 2 factors I mention are KEY to the success or failure
of any list building venture.

Hope this helps.

All success
Dr.Mani

With so many offers out there, I think more an more lists are getting tired of the spam that they receive. Lets face it alot of the time it can be classified as spam. Sure there are some worthy emails that should be sent out, that have some great offers.

People unsubscribe because they have had enough and what you are emailing them and they no longer want to accept more, so they are treating it as spam and want to be rid of it. Send no more!

If you are hammering away trying to make a sale to your list everyday, they are just going to treat it as spam eventually. You have to have something to offer them to keep them interested and most of the time they want things that are going to help them. Whether it be advice or tips or a product that just everyone has got to have. If it helps them they'll buy.

If you can offer them friendship and be a real person I find this build a rapport with your list. I think this is the best approach treat them as friends and you won't get too many unsubscribe.

Be genuine in what you are trying to sell them and treat them as selling to a friend.

Just my opinion, hope it helps.

Shane,

List building can be extremely lucrative or it can be extremely frustrating as you're finding out. I empathize with you as I experienced you're pain early on in my career.

Here's an example of a highly profitable list that I built a while back.

When I build a list I like to keep it tightly focused. The tighter the focus, the higher your conversions will be.

This list was built around the credit repair niche. To build the list I became a member of several credit/finance/mortgage forums where I posted informative reply's with a link in my sig that offered a free 4 part course showing how to boost your credit score to 720. I also used free classifieds ad sites like craigslist, kijiji, and oodle for sign ups. This list is highly targeted with a group of consumers who have an urgent need.

I used aweber to build my list as it's easier to manage the sending of emails as they are staggered depending on when folks sign up.

After the subscriber has been sent the first three parts of the course, the fourth and final part is sent. The only difference is that in the final part I have an affiliate link to a credit repair offer. The psychology behind my method is simple. Do it yourself credit repair is not particularly difficult but it does take time, a long time. Reports have to be mailed as well as the dispute letters and then follow up all takes time and only a few see it through to the end. In today's "instant gratification" society, people are impatient and will not go through all of the steps required to repair their credit. And so the fourth and final part of the course highlights the ease of allowing a professional to fix your credit by just hitting the buy button.

To recap:
A. My subscribers have entrusted me with their email address in regards to "credit repair" in exchange for something of value, the 4 part course. Never forget that the more you give, the more you will receive!
B. The "credit repair" course is sent and is the only item within the email. I don't ramble on about the weather or try to sell them something related. That's not what they subscribed for.
C. The final part of the course is sent along with the offer for them to have someone else perform the tedious and time consuming task of the "credit repair."

By keeping your list focus ultra tight, you'll convert at a much higher percentage than with any ad swap or purchased list. I know others will disagree with me saying that they can sell anything to their list and that may be true. However, my conversion rate with this list was crazy and my list was not very big at all, around 3,200 the first time I ran it. My profit was approx. $13k. Total time invested was about 30 hours over the course of 6 weeks. I've since run this campaign twice with similar results. This method can and is being used for different niches like relationship help, gambling/casinos, dog training, etc.

My apologies as I left out a lot of the nuance behind this method but I hope that the crux came through.

Yes lists take time to build but when built properly, they can be hugely profitable.

essere ricchi,

David