Why Size Doesn't Matter!
Recently I have been pm'd about helping with some list building and a question was asked...
'What size list should I aim for?'
I know this has been talked about here many times before but I thought I would post an answer again, from my point of view.
Having a successful mailing list is all about the RELATIONSHIP you have with the list and nothing to do with the size.
It is a two-way communication and you have to have people on your list that want to hear what you have to say. If they don't want to hear what you have to say then they sure as hell are never going to purchase anything from you!
What this means is that we can dispel myth one of email lists...
You have to try and keep everyone happy.
This is absolute rubbish and is also impossible. You have to know that some people just won't see eye to eye with you and be happy for them to unsubscribe. It doesn't matter because if they don't like what you are saying they aren't going to purchase anything from you anyway.
I am not going to go into a complete listbuilding strategy in this post but I do want to explain a bit further on why it is important to build the relationship and why most people involved in IM still do not do this.
A squeeze page is not just about getting email addresses!
Your squeeze page should be about so much more. You want to provide your new subscribers with what you promised them and then a whole lot more.
This is called offering value. Go above and beyond what you told them you would give them.
If you are giving them a free ebook on SEO then follow this up for the next 8 weeks with an autoresponder that gives extra tips advice and takes them to a more advanced level.
Encourage your list to respond to you, reply to you and get in touch with you.
Care about how much success they have and they will reward you by giving your success.
Do this and you can have an ultra-responsive list.
I recently read a very well-known marketer (who I very much respect) saying he got about 1,600 clickthroughs from a mailing list of 68,000. He considered this to be an excellent response rate and had many colleagues who had much lower responses. This is a 2.35% clickthrough.
My personal opinion is that this sucks!
Here is the results of a recent general mail out that I did to 5543 people.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
As you can see I got 912 clickthroughs at a 16.5% rate this is 652% better than the well known marketer!
Don't forget that this was a general mail out, targeted mail outs achieve clicks well over 20% and often over 30%.
If I had sent this to a list of 68,000 I would have got over 11220, okay probably would have been slightly worse because of scaling but I would be upset at only 1600.
Bottom line take care of and respect your subscribers and they will take care of you.
'What size list should I aim for?'
I know this has been talked about here many times before but I thought I would post an answer again, from my point of view.
Having a successful mailing list is all about the RELATIONSHIP you have with the list and nothing to do with the size.
It is a two-way communication and you have to have people on your list that want to hear what you have to say. If they don't want to hear what you have to say then they sure as hell are never going to purchase anything from you!
What this means is that we can dispel myth one of email lists...
You have to try and keep everyone happy.
This is absolute rubbish and is also impossible. You have to know that some people just won't see eye to eye with you and be happy for them to unsubscribe. It doesn't matter because if they don't like what you are saying they aren't going to purchase anything from you anyway.
I am not going to go into a complete listbuilding strategy in this post but I do want to explain a bit further on why it is important to build the relationship and why most people involved in IM still do not do this.
A squeeze page is not just about getting email addresses!
Your squeeze page should be about so much more. You want to provide your new subscribers with what you promised them and then a whole lot more.
This is called offering value. Go above and beyond what you told them you would give them.
If you are giving them a free ebook on SEO then follow this up for the next 8 weeks with an autoresponder that gives extra tips advice and takes them to a more advanced level.
Encourage your list to respond to you, reply to you and get in touch with you.
Care about how much success they have and they will reward you by giving your success.
Do this and you can have an ultra-responsive list.
I recently read a very well-known marketer (who I very much respect) saying he got about 1,600 clickthroughs from a mailing list of 68,000. He considered this to be an excellent response rate and had many colleagues who had much lower responses. This is a 2.35% clickthrough.
My personal opinion is that this sucks!
Here is the results of a recent general mail out that I did to 5543 people.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
As you can see I got 912 clickthroughs at a 16.5% rate this is 652% better than the well known marketer!
Don't forget that this was a general mail out, targeted mail outs achieve clicks well over 20% and often over 30%.
If I had sent this to a list of 68,000 I would have got over 11220, okay probably would have been slightly worse because of scaling but I would be upset at only 1600.
Bottom line take care of and respect your subscribers and they will take care of you.
Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.