Email Marketing Strategy, Need Your Thoughts

Honestly?

Bad strategy.

(I've been self-employed for over a decade and have been
building lists since November 2003).

You've selected a MASSIVELY competitive market so it's
even more important that you have something distinctive
to bring to the marketplace.

If you try to appeal to everyone, you'll appeal to no one.

Someone who signs up for information on muscle building
wants to hear about... muscle building.

If you want to teach them about any other subject, then
invite them to join a separate list on that specific subject.

However, talking about too many different subjects then
damages your credibility as you give the appearance of being
a jack of all trades and master of none.

Instead, narrow your focus on a subject you can bring real
value to and build your list and expert status in that area.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

Personally, i think thats a bad idea. You should keep it focused on what they signed up for. So they sign up for muscle building, keep it on that topic. I wouldn't give just general diet information to a person who signed up for muscle building. It should on muscle building itself, not general stuff.

You need to understand the type of people signing up to your list, and their exact needs and tailor the message that speaks to them, instead of 1 general message to everyone. You'd get a better response

If your target market is everyone (or almost everyone), then it is going to be very hard to carve out a niche for yourself.

I do think it is possible to be in the health related niches still, although they are competitive, there is plenty of money there.

But you are going to have to put a spin on things and focus in on some very tight niches or you will have a very difficult time in such a crowded marketplace.

Picture a target with multiple bullseyes ona single sheet of paper. A common one looks like the '5' face on a standard gaming die - a bull in each quadrant and one in the middle. Each bull represents one of the sub-niches you're talking about.

Shoot at that target with a shotgun, which represents the single list you are considering.

Some pellets may hit each bull, but most of the shot will be wasted.

Contrast that with shooting at the target with a rifle. Each bullet is precisely aimed at one of the bulls. With practice, you'll hit the center a very high percentage of the time.

Another thing to think about...

"Health and fitness" isn't a niche. It's a vast marketplace filled with hundreds of niches.

"Weight loss" is still a vast market, with many different niches within it. For example, a teenage girl looking to lose 5 lb so she looks hot in a prom dress is a different niche than a 50 year old man looking to shed pounds after a heart attack. Your tone and approach, as well as the products you might recommend, would be quite different. As would your approach to someone seeking to lose body fat to improve athletic performance. The last one could be broken down even further - speed dependent sports vs. endurance dependent sports, etc.

Even publishing giants like Rodale and Agora don't try to make one list or one publication cover something as broad as 'health and fitness'.

Even with that said, the idea of using multiple sites to feed particular lists isn't all bad.

Say you had a list that dealt with using diet and nutrition to improve endurance in sports. You could feed that list with a site on golf endurance, mountain biking, triathlon, tennis, etc.

Make sense?

Ignoring the fact that you're targeting a very competitive market, as others have said, here's what I'd do - create separate lists for each niche, but give them the option to subscribe to the other niches during signup. I don't agree that muscle builders have no interest in weight loss, or that people looking to loose weight would have no interest in fitness training, they're all interconnected, however loosely. So give them a simple checkbox at signup and they can decide what interests them and what does not.
I'd then market to each niche with specific information, but have some creatives which appeal to and are thus emailed to multiple lists. A good email program can manage all of this for you quite easily, including custom autoresponders for each list.

I agree with all the replies - bad idea to try to go too broad. If you sign up for a good autoresponder, it is easy to manage multiple lists in any case. Either https://www.aweber.com or or first 100 subscribers free with Create free account ? email marketing - GetResponse

I think you can also use surveys to re-segment your subscribers from the various websites into other specific interests they may have. That way, you'll end up providing more agreeable content than just assuming they'd be interested in all the 5 topics

You have to target, big mistake of mine was building several lists in the IM niche and sending them all the same email. Same market, different problems - different niche.

Focus on one to start with, build an auto-responder for say the first month and see how that works out. Gradually add an email a day, a week or a month to your autor-responders series and then look into starting again...

... same market, different problem - different niche.

With time I bet you'll be able to cross-promote your lists, perhaps make money from the same people on different lists.

But by that time you'll have real results and, probably, a new direction based on what's working. You can't always plan.