How many emails before you offer a product?

I think it depends on how fast and efficient you manage to build a relationship between you and your potential buyers. You can send them 2-3 emails and then an offer, or you can send them 9 emails and the 10th, with the offer. In the end, you kind of have to listen to your gut feeling on this one.

If you plan to go with that concept, then you'll most likely fail. It's not a case of sending ALL the money making affiliate products. People need direction, and if you just plan to sell them everything, then you're not doing anyone any favours.


Everyone has a different way of doing things. You need to really think about the structure of your funnel. By all means help them along the way and make some money by doing so. It depends on what the free offer is, and how it leads into ways of what they'll need in order to help achieve their own goals.

You could suggest things in the very first email, but don't make a hard sell out of it. As I said before, you need to structure things in a way that's going to help you to build authority and in a way that "by getting this product / service" it's going to help them.

Some emails won't fall into resulting to a sale, maybe you want to send them to your blog with some video training, or case studies that could even lead up to a product.

So... there's really no set figure in terms of when to offer something. Every offer will have a different stage and every marketer will have a different way of providing value and offering the things subscribers will need in order to help them progress.

It depends on how you build a relationship with your future customers. How long to wait? It's not so easy to answear your question believe me sometimes third or seventh mail is not enought but if you're smart- one is enough.

I would like to know how many (valuable) emails to send in order to build the appropriate relationship and trust.You've figured out inventory, you've got a healthy amount of traffic, and your of studies: 67.45% of online shopping carts are abandoned .Abandoned cart emails are sent to customers who have added products to their cart It follows up its offer to please respond if there were “any problems .You generally don't discount everything in your store, so don't do so in emails you send out.


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Property Management

All my information in my emails is FREE

Seriously, I promote a Product from Day 1.

All this crap about giving and giving and being too timid to ask for someone's business gets rather cumbersome to hear after awhile.

Particularly with the MMO Niche.

Have confidence in yourself and be impressive enough from Day 1 ,to be able to legitimately offer these people Product that will help to solve any problems they may have

Really depends a lot on your goal with your list but as a general rule the 80/20 principal works well. Give 80% take 20% or 1 sales email in 5.

Timid marketers have skinny children.

For me, I see thing a lot different.

Most people who subscribed to my list, bought the product I was promoting right after they opted in. The people who did not join right away, I kept giving them a lot of free content and value. Did I make more sales from this? No.

What I found, and this is my view on things, is that people were HOT and bought right after they opted into my list. My follow ups, no matter how good it was, never got me any sales.

So now I am sending people right to an offer and I am not building a list no more.

I have not tested it myself, but from others who have successfully done it, the sequence should be something like

content -> content -> promotional link -> content --> content--> content --> promotion -> content, etc.

Basically, when you give more value than ask in return, your subscribers should be happy.

Hello foreverstray...
the number of mails and time are subjective, each marketer has a different strategy, everything depends on the type of relationship you create with your subscrib.

Either you're in business to get praise from free loading peasants, or you're in business to make money from selling solutions to problems that investment minded people have.

...and, if you think any of that free content is helping anyone, just take a look around at the vast majority of people online who are struggling, and compare it to the vast amounts of free content available.

Not to mention, if the problem is an urgent one your subscribers need a solution to, you aren't helping them by holding back your best paid stuff, are you?

As long as your offer is a good one and it will help people solve a problem, why on earth would you hold it back from them in place of free content they don't value, and are most likely never going to put to use?

Doesn't mean you shouldn't give away any free content, just that it should be far less than the most valuable stuff, which of course, is the paid content.

To use that old, outdated model of giving more free content away in place of paid content, is to pander to the opportunists who are struggling.

Personally, I don't want free content at all. I know that if I pay for something, I'm much more likely to place value on it, and therefore much more likely to use it.

But I need to demonstrate authority and credibility by showing my subscribers I know my shit?

No, you don't. You need to demonstrate that you are a trustworthy person - and when you that, people on your list will buy your products or the ones you recommend. And that, of course, means that you DON'T bombard them with pure sales drivel for worthless products you haven't tested yourself.

Email is a relationship building medium for the most part. It's not a selling medium, although, most of the sales heavy lifting is done in your emails. You just have to learn how to engage your audience without feeling the need to cram more free tips down their gullet in the hope they will reciprocate by taking out their credit card.

It doesn't work like that.

I used to use that model myself - and I can tell you it's not only the least profitable, it's also pointless. We are swimming in a sea of free content. To think you have to send more of that free content your subscribers way in order to build relationships, you really have to sit down and think about how REAL relationships are built in the first place.

It's not with free content that's for sure.

I don't pop down to my friends with free gifts. I don't have to convince them to listen to my recommendations. They trust that I won't steer them wrong.

So, trust becomes infinitely more important than all this free content you're giving away. And to build trust, you just have to be personal and personable. Tell stories; real stories that people can resonate with. Be polarising. Authentic. Confident.

Free content doesn't build trust quicker than stories do. Free content is everywhere. It's been done-to-death and it separates you from no one

Give a tip here and there, but make sure you don't overload them with more free crap they can get from any forum or blog out there.

Anyway, the only people who value free content more than paid content, are the very people who have no intention of investing in themselves or their future. This is not always the case, but it is the case most often for most people.

Besides, your free offer you give away on your squeeze page should do a good job of demonstrating your authority and credibility. To believe you have to somehow "out content" the gurus in order to compete for the attention of your subscribers, is not only misguided, but also foolish. No point fighting the fight on their turf. You don't need to.

Show me you have personality.

Show me that you're not a people pleasing, watered down, diluted sorry excuse for a human being who follows the traditional approach like so many other "me too" marketers, and I'll buy into you far quicker than anyone else who just throws a lot of free "most likely useless" content my way.

I don't want your free content because I know it's never going to be as good as your paid content. And if your free content is just as good as your paid content, then shame on you for treating freebie seekers the same as the people who have invested in your paid content.

Until someone gives you money, they are NEVER to be treated like your paying customers. They have not proven their worth to you. And yet, you want to treat them as if they have.

Look at the amount of people on your list who are never going to buy from you. Do you want to market to them, or the people who will buy from you? To find out who the buyers are, offer them your products and services to find out.

To use the free content approach is to treat everyone the same. You end up treating freebie seekers who have no intention of ever buying from you, like the investment minded people like myself who want to buy from you.

Thing is, you just can't treat everyone the same. This should be blatantly obvious. But it ain't. Too many people pleasing ponces afraid to just tell it like it is. And what you get, are a whole slew of marketers banging the same drum, all trying to get attention, and never actually doing anything different than what the traditional format tells them to do.

Give more free content than paid content and your subscribers will love you for it.

Hogwash.

If that model worked as well as everyone says it does, then why are so many people struggling to build profitable email lists? It's obvious this approach is for egotistical people who want to be liked more than they want to make money.

Worrying about unsubscribes. Worrying about what people will think of me if I sell too much. Worrying about that people will complain if I email them too much.

It's nonsense.

Move the free line.

Ignore the free line.

I've created something that will help you, now buy the bloody thing so you can get on with your life without having to sift through a walloping amount of bullshit along the way.

This ain't rocket science.

But many will disagree. Good. Let them, there's a reason the mediocre majority are the mediocre majority. They follow what the majority are doing.

And no, I'm not saying the free content approach doesn't work. I'm saying that it separates you from no one - and you run the greater risk of being perceived as just another "me too" marketer with nothing else to show me other than what many, many others have to show me too.

It works, it just doesn't work as well as many will have you believe.

Want to stand out?

Want to get the right kind of attention?

Then stop trying to "out content" the competition.

Instead, build solid, long-term relationships with like minded people. Show them the real person behind the computer screen. Show them you aren't afraid to tell it like it is. Write emails that engage, entertain, that are controversial, kooky, funny, personal - and all that other good stuff real human beings relate to.

Remember, people are looking for people to buy into before their products.

Explain them the steps they need to earn money (if they are in MMO niche). While providing free steps recommend them affiliate products that will assist them in earning online. In this way you will not be pushy and still earning money even from your first email.

I don't wait what so ever, and wouldn't advise others to either.

You get a product starting on the first and all the way up to the last.

This is email marketing we are talking about, right?

Now how those products are delicately positioned...

Well that's a completely different thread