Build A Relationship With Your List Or Not

I believe that could work, however there is definitely more money when you build a relationship with your list.

He probably didn't mean 'burn' as in setting them on fire or deleting them from his list.

He probably meant that he just slams them with affiliate offers 3 times a day and whoever buys, buys and whoever unsubscribes, so be it.

Personally I wouldn't do it and I don't believe it's the best way to build a business but I'm sure it will produce some income at least short term. I wouldn't do it though.

There are still a lot of email spammers out there even though it's not legal right? They don't care about their lists but I bet it's worth it to them to break the law because they make a crap ton of money.

Lots of business models work. I heard a "guru" say one time that if he wasn't getting unsubscribers he didn't feel that he was marketing hard enough. His only goal was to keep more than he lost.

"That guy" who always hammers his list with offers and refuses to build a relationship them will not be in business long. His list will soon get worn out, and stop buying (if the even are) and unsubscribe themselves. I was on a few marketers list that all they did was just send out offers and nothing of value, so I just did them the favor of unsubscribing myself.

It's just dumb, simple as that. There's no longevity in this model and the ceiling is very low for how much money you can earn. Anyone who has been in this business for a while knows that having the respect and trust of your customers is the route to riches. The money is in the list of repeat buyers and lifetime value of those people. I agree with Shaun, I've no respect for these people.

If you saw that video I assume you have been places you shouldn't be. :rolleyes:

I usually spend 4+ hours a day answering ALL of my subscriber's emails and have gotten many repeat buyers and affiliates because of it.

The money is great, but the relationships (and seeing your list make money themselves) is the best part. As overwhelming as it can get sometimes, I would never outsource anyone to answer emails for me.

My old 9-5 had me answering 100+ emails a day, so it's 2nd nature to me.

I know some gurus that can earn 600k income with their list consist of less than 5000 opt it. I don't think he can do that by churn and burn. In my opinion, if you fill your list with the right people, you should carefully take care of it with personal message or build relation with them. If you fill your list by offering freebies, I think churn and burn method will works for you.

If you are in the IM niche and are not a big name marketer then building a list may not be the best thing as you will find people are going to unsubscribe pretty quickly.
We all do it unfortunately.
If you are not in the IM niche then a list will be useful, but bear in mind if they can get information free elsewhere then you may not have a buyers list.

There's always more than one approach.

Plan A
You provide value through you blog and to your list and have the privilege and luxury of an ever-expanding pool of customers that are happy to buy from you.

Plan B
You manage to build a list and hammer them with offers every day until they get fed up and opt out.

Here's the thing. The work is essentially the same. You still have to get subscribers. Maintaining a relationship with them makes more sense to me because, for the same effort you keep the majority of your customers while getting more. Treat them right and they tell others who might also buy from you. This isn't that hard, really.

With the hit and run option you're always working your butt off for a few sales with people who will eventually bug out fairly soon.

Many of the newer people who come here to "do IM" don't realize it but by default are often choosing this plan. I'm talking about people who "auto post" (spam) blogs for backlinks and load up other people's properties with senseless spun articles. I believe they actually think they're marketers but that business model isn't sustainable.

You'll never go wrong by treating people well.

This is a very interesting conversation to me, as I've been reading lately about some people who have come to the realization as of late that the whole relationship thing doesn't work for them.
The general consensus here is that you build a relationship with your list by continually offering them great free content that they can't easily get somewhere else. They come to trust you because of this and, because of that trust, are more likely to buy something from you when you "suggest" it.

Outside of the hungry "I want to make money right now and I'll buy anything" crowd though, this seems to be easier said than done. Some people are finding out that the more great free content they offer their list the more the want and expect. They love the content, sing your praises, stay on your list and then when something is offered, they don't buy.

People are even starting to question the whole notion of the free offer. Some have come to believe it only builds a list of freebee seekers, and that makes sense to me. I'm kinda confused about which direction to take personally. I does seem like many marketing methods you learn about in internet marketing only work for those in the business of selling shovels to gold miners. The whole list-building, relationship thing seems to be one of those. I guess as with anything else though, it's a numbers game.

This method can work, however it is not be the best method. You will need a high number of new people signing onto your list to replace the ones that have been burned, but there is a way to make even inefficient methods work.

I can't say I agree with this sort of thing. Then again, people like this are like dealing with car salesmen. I like to build a relationship with my subscribers and I also answer any questions they have.

This method could work.

But if you can build a solid relationship with your list, you will be much more profitable.

Works great if you build a relationship.
Think of yourself as entering a shop...
would you buy from a grumpy sales person?
Or would you buy from someone who
builds a rapport with you?
Regards

Simply put guys there are those with a short term plan and those with a long term plan. In the short term the churn and burn model works (short term). Vice versa the person who plans to create a long lasting business will inevitably reach his/her goal as well.

You just have to decide which path you want to travel. Just remember we are always projecting and building a brand. It's just a matter of how you want yours to be perceived.

To me, that's a real crap shoot. How can you expect to have any longevity as an internet marketer with an attitude like that? Anyone in their right mind would not have a business philosophy like that.
Dr. Mike

Of course you need to build a relationship with your list ...
That's how you can increase your conversation rate and make more sales.
But don't always sell them things, sometimes help then, give them little helpers or pointers.

I believe building relationship and trust with your list is highly beneficial. For instance if your niche is a "tux company" and you have a list of people that also will soon need a limo for prom so you can work out a deal and sell your "tux leads" list to a limo service. A win-win situation. Also. A customer on the list might not buy your service at first, but studies have shown that in time, a customer will buy your product.
It may be time consuming but you want to have the focus on building a LONG TERM business.

It will probably work for low cost, or high converting offers, but will not build trust and all that goes with it.

It also means that you would be constantly looking for new subscribers to replace the ones you burned, rather than building your list yet larger.

So it might have limited success but would not result in your achieving your potential with a list.

I would focus on building a high quality relationship with your list because it's crucial to your long term success and longevity.

Each subscriber is always going to be most responsive in the first few weeks after they are added to your list.

A certain percentage will always be very unresponsive so it makes sense to delete subscribers after a certain amount of time of unresponsiveness.

But it's up to you to decide if you want to be keeping them for as long as possible or aggressively marketing to them and getting higher unsubscribes but possibly more shorter term sales.

I personally would not use this method. I think having a customer who will continually buy from you is more valuable then a 1 time customer.

If this is all you were going to do - might as well send people to the sales page and not even worry about list building.

If someone is an expert at generating traffic, then getting them to subscribe - say 1,000 + more a month then this might be better.

In the end though I think having a list of highly responsive prospects is worth the time and energy it takes to create it. You literally have instant traffic and money at your dispense 24/7 with the simple push of the send button in your email account.

Building a relationship is beneficial but I would not say it is essential.

If you offer value to your lists or have a buyer only list then in fact you have already built a small relationship with them or they would never have brought from you in the first place.

Hope that makes sense

As has been indicated before some models fit more with
building a relationship than others. But the opposite of
building a relationship doesn't have to be destroying the
relationship. You should still treat your subscribers with
respect--the same way you would want to be treated.

If email marketing is a major part of your business model
then keeping a crowd warm and loyal would lead to more
sales for sure. You may need a marketing "made up"
personality to go along with your relationship building
(like radio personalities) but it's a relationship anyway.

-Ray Edwards

Here's a thought... Could it be that different business models work because customers are all different?

"Buyers are like porcupines in heat". (From what I understand porcupines can only mate a couple days a year?)

Can't remember where I heard that quote. But those porcupines get real busy for those couple days!

I personally like the relationship model. I'm just playing the devil's advocate here. It stands to reason that if people are making purchases from the aggressive marketers, then those people were looking to make a purchase in a quest for knowledge in their new interest (niche).

Maybe all of us that take time to build relationships aren't catering to the brand new people to the niche that are still excited to make new purchases? Therefore maybe we are doing those certain people a disservice?

Maybe that's not the case at all... But it has to be something then because both models work so both models are filling a need for certain customers.

But that's just an opinion and you know what they say about those.

Try ethical marketing man. It's the next "cool" thing.