11 List-Building Questions - Help Me Out?
Anyway, I've got a ton of listbuilding/capture page/e-mail marketing questions and would appreciate it VERY much if I could get even a few answered.
EDIT: Look to the end of the thread for more questions.
1. What font do you e-mail in? (Times New Roman/Verdana/Ubunut/etc.)
A: General trend seems to say it doesn't really matter. I will try to make my font synonymous with Gmail fonts.
2. For those of you in the IM niche, do you send e-mails out to your subs multiple times a week?
A: Got something good to say? Say it. Sending e-mails every day is likely to create a bigger impact with your subs, so long as you have value.
3. Is it a good idea to have the homepage of your website a squeeze page with an incentive offered for signing up? I don't mind if this increases the bounce rate, so long as the traffic-to-subscriber rate goes up (currently I'm at something like .5%, ).
A: Not a good idea. Just have a subscription form visible on every page.
4. I'm in the process of creating an eBook for my subscribers. It might take another day or so to complete. In the meantime, should I offer PLR as an incentive? No incentive? No squeeze page?
A: You've got the eBook. Go market it. (And really, what were you thinking with PLR? Idiot.)
5. Do you have a value-to-product promotion ratio? (I.e. 2 e-mails of value, one promotion, 3:1, 1:1, 5:1) I'm trying to work on building a relationship with my subscribers and really show them that I want to give them as much value as possible. Trust makes money (to say it bluntly ).
A: At least twice as much value as promotion. And no promotions without at least a little bit of value.
6. Is it a bad idea to have a laser-targeted eBook? For example, there are a lot of sites up there that offer eBooks on methods of gaining free traffic as an incentive. It turns out (in my experience), most of those methods are either trash, or can be found in one solid post from Copyblogger/any other awesome blogging-related blog. Would it be better to have an eBook on a much more specific topic, say "Ten WordPress Plugins That Boost Productivity" or "5 Steps To Comments Coming In By The Truckload"?
A: Nope - less people are likely to sign up. Do something general, but with a superman load of value.
7. If a website/list is completely new, you should work on creating value first, right? Monetization later?
A: Uh - depends. Do you have super awesome, super great quality products? Then go ahead. But NEVER promote without at least a little bit of value. Give subscriber-only bonuses, gifts, etc.
8. Is it a good idea to personally send a message to a specific subscriber? A solicited message?
A: What the .... does that have to do with anything? It doesn't really affect anything, as long as you DON'T spam.
9. After 1-2 weeks, is it alright to ask your subs for a favor? Such as, complete this survey to tell me what kind of content you want from my blog, or something of the sort.
A: Sure. Communication is a 2-way street.
10. Being blunt, straightforward, and frank - good idea?
A: Always. Really, what were you thinking, JR?
11. Would you sign up if someone offered "website feedback" as an incentive? Such as, if someone signed up (with a box to provide their website URL, not mandatory), I would go to their website, review it, find bugs, and provide feedback from the perspective of a viewer. Good idea (for the beginning, when I only get 3-5 subs a week)?
A: Meh - this isn't your target market, and most experienced IMs are happy with their website. Stick to the eBook/e-course.
If I get answers to these questions, I'll edit this thread and post them under the question, so anyone with a similar question doesn't need to go reading through the whole thread.
EDIT: Answers obtained. (see below for answers to MORE Qs) Thanks, all!
THANK YOU!
JR John
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