Are you using an autoresponder series?

Yes, with all of my lists. It works well.

Specifically, I like to avoid using "broadcasts" whenever I can, for a big variety of reasons.

The first and most important reason, for me, is ...

(i) Subscribers in many niches have told me in the past that they don't like "obvious broadcasts" because (a) they interrupt continuity, and (b) they make the sender look more like a marketer and less like a trusted provider of valuable information.

But I have a few other reasons, too ...

(ii) It's very rare that I want everyone on a list to get the same information at the same time, regardless of how long they've been there and where they are in the series;

(iii) It interferes with "subscriber expectation". It's really important, when opting people in, to set their expectations, and tell them exactly what they're going to receive and when. This dramatically increases open-rates and click-through rates. Sending "broadcasts" makes that very difficult;

(iv) To me, it feels like "being in a hurry" and "aiming for quick sales" - exactly the things I like to avoid, because I earn far more in the long run by avoiding that, and by having subscribers who trust and respect the fact that I avoid that.

For me, the key concept is: interrupting continuity with an obvious promotion of something is really a much bigger deal than many people realise.

It makes you look desperate to sell, and to many subscribers, understandably, that comes across very negatively and ruins your credibility and their trust.

In my opinion, the people who imagine that that isn't a big deal are typically those to whom open-rates of under 30% are acceptable, perhaps partly because they have little awareness of customer perception of - for example - passing off a commissionable product-launch as "news". (In other words, not being aware of their customers' perspectives very much at all!).

People can easily tell this from whether the continuity of the process has been interrupted, i.e. whether it matches what you told them at the end of the previous message to be "watching out for in the next message, in 5 days' time", or whatever. This is a fundamental part of expectation-setting and continuity-maintenance.

Communicating effectively with subscribers is hard work. But then again, so is trying to convince yourself later that "25% open-rates are standard in the industry". Just my perspective.

What are the essential things to know about list building?

I use both, and both work. I don't send too many broadcasts, but some to my customers with special deals or offers. I don't send follow ups too close together, and they do ok.

^^^nice post above!

Merry Christmas

Wise words, always love to hear opinions and awesome-long-but-im-ok-with-it explanations like alexa's.

But even with broadcasts, who says you should always sell via email?

Why sell via email at all?

Yeah you can do it every now and then but the email is not a way to sell.

It's just a medium you know?

My point is, less selling via email makes my broadcasting job much easier..

Most of my sales come from after sending out 5+ emails to my leads. I would say autoresponder series is important to make money while not even talking to the person.

It's the lifeblood of my business, so I have to use one.

When I first got into list building, I thought I had to broadcast ALL of my newsletters manually (boy, did I learn my lesson on that one...). But an autoresponder literally does what it says.

It all depends in what niche you're in. I am in the IM niche and since information changes almost daily, I like to keep my AR sequence short (between 5-7 messages).

After that I broadcast to those who are finished with my AR sequence more cool stuff and the occassional promo.

Depends heavily on your niche and what you plan to promote. If you're promoting WSOs, you're series will be very short as each day they'll be a new wso of the day or whatever you want to promote.

But with other niches a good month or so is good