When is the proper time to start selling to your list?

Build some confidence from with your list subscribers before any selling / promoting to them. I believe that 5 weeks as you have it set at currently is a bit to long & should be reduced. As long as you are offering and providing the subscribers with some valuable content regularly within the first say 2 weeks you should be able to then proceed to try promoting, just see how things pan out. Watch your statistics, within your list, see who's reading what and opening / clicking on what.

It would be too long for me, I must say.

I think it's quite right not to rush, to deliver valuable content first, and all the rest of it, but I do think 5 weeks is too long, yes.

I also think sending emails regularly, 7 days apart, may be less than optimal, just because it's "day of the week syndrome" which can have downsides. I prefer 6 days apart, myself, to avoid that.

I normally send them email on days 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16 and then every 5 or 6 days. And I'll normally put my first "sales pitch" (which isn't actually a "sales pitch" at all, by most people's standards) in the 4th email I send. Sometimes in the 5th.

I suspect this varies a bit from niche to niche and from list to list and maybe even according to what made them opt in in the first place.

People use these terms very differently and it's not always clear what they mean.

To me, in this context, a "hard sell" is content that you might find, more or less on a sales page, i.e. telling people all the benefits, giving them reasons to buy, and answering their probable "objections".

A "soft sell" might be more like what people call "pre-selling", such as telling your "personal story" about the product, writing a review of it, or something like that.

Every 3rd email is a good average. "Soft sell" like previously mentioned. Something like, "By the way, I found something that works great that you may be interested in, Check it out here."

Everything I've learned has told me to start selling right away. The subscriber has taken action by offering their email. They are ready to get moving.
This doesn't mean you have to get in their face about buying something, but you should at least provide them the option.

I never realized how essential list building is, I definitely need to start building a list from all my visitors. Thanks Alexa.

RIGHT NOW.

Send offers to your list only if you have just 1 person on you list and here's the reason:

(I don't have to type when Alexa is here )

As soon as you have "earned" their trust...

Hey bud spreading your emails out that far defeats the purpose of the list. By doing that they will forget why they subscribed to your list in the first place. Here is how my ar series looks

0 welcome message
2 days simple article email free info
5 days Free video
7 days Warm up to a sell
8 days Selling day
11 days Thank you for the orders mail
13 days repeat the process again and again
16 days --------------------
20 days---------------------
and so on

Hope that helps you understand a little better.

Here is a concept that is rarely mentioned. I have subscribed to a list before and they immediately began sending "blasts" to me...there was no sales funnel, but each "blast" contained exceptional quality and delivered so it was OK. If your emails immediately contain and maintain a high level of quality you can get away with it.

A lot of you will disagree with me here...

Let's face it. The customer knows why they had to enter the email address to get something - so you can sell them something.

Why hold up the buying process?

Also, you want to give away something extremely valuable, but SHORT!

Do NOT EVER give away an entire ebook or a huge audio/video course. Quick consumption is key...

The reason is because most people will not have the type of patience to go through entire courses. Besides, they will not value it as much since it WAS free in the first place.

You always want the subscriber to get to the bottom of the report that you gave away, and send them to a special offer.

If they carry on with that, great.

As for non buyers, they are still on your list. I suggest you send them the report, 2 days later send them some quick valuable tips (in your niche), a few days later you send a soft sell, then the next 24 hours a hardsell.

- Dean

P.S. This isn't some junk I pulled outta my... I got Ryan Deiss's ultimate list building and got tons of golden nuggets like these out of it.

It really depends on your niche and how well your initial report has gone down. Think relationship building and you will not go far wrong. As other posters above have stated, if your email open rate is good then there is no reason not to promote early as your list by opening emails enjoys the value you are giving.

Regards

Nigel

I'm one of those weirdo's who looks at my email list as a way to profit - so, I sell to them immediately.

My emails are (usually) long-form, consisting of high quality info, then a short sales pitch, but once in a while I'll shoot just a pitch.

Again, I start selling to them immediately.

Why not offer them something of value (free) in the very first email and then also show them how they can enhance that with something they can buy?

And then continue that for every email thereafter.

If people on your list don't want to be sold to, then maybe you don't want them on your list?

Lee

Exactly. You should be selling something even if it's in a OTO - One Time Offer on the thank you page. If you don't offer anything for sale then you can't make any money.

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle - 80/20 rule. This is why you MUST offer something for sale.

Here t goes (mine is an 80/10/10)

10 % of people who visit or get on your list WON"T EVER BUY A THING FROM YOU!!! Get used to it.

10% of people who visit WILL BUY. That's just the nature of business. It happens.

80% of people are in the middle.

So, no need to worry about those initial 10% right? They are gone anyway. No need to focus on the other 10% they will buy - So you must offer something for sale up front either directly on the landing page, could be solo or with your opt in form, or offer it on the thank you page as the OTO. THIS HAS TO BE INSTALLED ON ALL SITES. Failure to implement this step will cause you to get $0 up front from those 10%.

SO, focus the follow up and soft sells with info to the other 80%. It has been proven that it takes like 7-10 points of contact before people will buy. You'll really have to train and test your list.

You can train your list to do anything you want but you got to try. So, offer affiliate programs and consultations in your free offers. These are just viral and a no brainer.

In your follow up mix it. Send an article on something valuable to your list, but make them go to your blog to read it. Then on the blog you monetize the blog with affiliate offers, your PLR stuff and your real products or services. Is that not subtle?

Also if you have like a course or something you can always and should always have a PS. so in that PS statement subtly mention that you have the complete package available at your link.

Bottom line is you just do it. Don't wait.

Write an article right now. If you can't go to ezinearticles do a search on the topic, read 5 articles, and then compile that "research" into your own words and come up with the top 3 tips to ____. You can even use the exact same title, just swipe it and use it for your article.

Now post that to your blog. Send the summary to your list and link it back to your blog.

Now do that once a day or at least once a week or you can outsource it to a company like mine.

Bottom line is you always want to offer them something because if you don't you are doing them a DIS SERVICE. If you have something that they could benefit from even if it costs them something and you make a commission (isn't that what doing sales at some job is any ways?) then you owe it to them to offer it to them.

P

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Preston Rahn is founder of VideoSalesLeads.com. Visit to get 2 free reports on how to use seo, social media, and video marketing to generate more traffic, leads and sales.
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I have read that after seventh contact with a customer its the right time to start selling. But who knows, it definitely depends on many factors.

That's interesting to think about.

Do you find that out through some sort of market research?

And do you think that these people would be totally turned off if you send them emails with good info and then a link to a product that would enhance whatever you talked about right off the bat?

Lee

There is no "proper" time. It's no rocket science. Give your subscribers the value that they subscribed for and then add one or two paid things. Some people will leave your list, some will stay and buy nothing and some will buy.

There's no pleasing everybody you know. Try, test, see results and repeat/alter your blueprint.

I'm in a few 'guru' list where they send 1-2 emails selling (hard selling in fact). Quite sometime ago someone posted a thread on a test he did to his list(couldn't find the thread now sorry). He did a comparison of sending 1 email/day and 2 emails/day. The finding was by sending 2 emails/day, he gets 1.5x the sales amount of sending just 1 email/day.

Even if your emails don't have a specific call-to-action to buy... it's important that they still add to the selling process.

For instance, they might educate the prospect on what a smart buying decision would be... drive home the pain the prospect faces and the need for your product or service... or it might even establish you as a credible authority that should be listened to.

With this said, generally, unless it's part of a pre-launch... I like to include a call-to-action to buy in just about every piece of content I create for clients.

Think of it this way... the prospect is looking for a solution, finds your site, opts-in... and when you don't offer a product or service for sale, it's a loss of opportunity for all.

The prospect doesn't get an opportunity to purchase what he or she was looking for, when he or she was looking for it... and you lose out on an opportunity to provide this solution to him or her. People are busy. You might not get his or her attention again.